2019 DLT Books - Title Sampler. July - December. by DLT Books

Holy Bible

revised New Jerusalem Bible Study edition

rNJB

Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 1 Spencer Court, 140-142 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4JJ Revised New Jerusalem Bible: Study Edition first published 2019 Biblical text © Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 2019 Translated by Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB Notes and Introductions © Dom Henry Wansbrough 2019 Psalms reprinted from The Revised Grail Psalms Copyright © 2010, Conception Abbey/The Grail, admin by GIA Publications, Inc., www.giamusic.com. All rights reserved. For the RNJB Bible text, introductions and footnotes: Nihil Obstat: John Hemer MHM STB MA LSS Censor Deputatus, Appointed by the Department for Christian Life and Worship Imprimatur: + George Stack Chairman, Department for Christian Life and Worship Date: 10th May 2019 The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free from doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed. The Revised Grail Psalms were confirmed by decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on March 19, 2010 (Prot. N. 172/09/L). Editions of the Revised New Jerusalem Bible published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd are not to be sold to or in the USA, Canada or the Philippine Republic. For these territories the copyright is controlled by The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. ISBN: 978-0-232-53362-0 Text and cover designed by Judy Linard. Stained glass created by Mary Anne Constance/www.pewtermoonsilver.co.uk Typeset by Kerrypress, St Albans AL3 8JL. Printed in Italy by La Tipografica Varese Srl The publisher would like to thank the following people for their contributions to the preparation of this edition, and assistance in enabling its publication: Philip Marsden, Tim Syder, Abbott Gregory Polan OSB, Professor Francis J. Moloney SDB, Andrew Carter, Karen Wilson, Lauren Darby, Katie Carter, Accuracy Matters, Judy Linard, Mary Anne Constance.

CONTENTS Foreword Preface Abbreviations

ix Judith xiii Esther xv 1 Maccabees 2 Maccabees THE OLD The Wisdom books TESTAMENT 1 Job The Pentateuch 3 The Psalms Genesis 5 Proverbs Exodus 79 Ecclesiastes Leviticus 141 The Song of Songs Numbers 187 Wisdom Deuteronomy 249 Ecclesiasticus Joshua 305 The Prophets Judges 347 Isaiah Ruth 389 Jeremiah The books of Samuel 397 Lamentations 1 Samuel 399 Baruch 2 Samuel 445 Ezekiel The books of Kings 485 Daniel 1 Kings 489 Hosea 2 Kings 535 Joel The books of Chronicles 579 Amos 1 Chronicles 583 Obadiah 2 Chronicles 625 Jonah The books of Ezra and Micah Nehemiah 675 Nahum Ezra 677 Habakkuk Nehemiah 693 Zephaniah Tobit 715 Haggai vi

737 761 781 829 867 869 927 1143 1201 1217 1231 1263 1349 1351 1471 1575 1589 1601 1673 1705 1725 1735 1753 1759 1765 1779 1787 1795 1803

CONTENTS

Zechariah Malachi

1809 The Pastoral epistles 1827 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Titus THE NEW TESTAMENT 1833 Philemon Hebrews The Gospel according to Matthew 1835 The letters to all Christians The Gospel according to Mark 1895 James 1 Peter The Gospel according to Luke 1937 2 Peter 1 John The Gospel according to John 1999 The second and third Acts of the Apostles 2061 letters of John The Pauline letters 2121 2 John Romans 2123 3 John 1 Corinthians 2149 Jude 2 Corinthians 2173 The Revelation to John Galatians 2189 Ephesians 2199 Philippians 2209 Study Materials Colossians 2217 Index to the Notes Chronological Table The letters to the Thessalonians 2225 Index of Persons 1 Thessalonians 2227 Index to the Maps 2 Thessalonians 2233

2237 2239 2247 2253 2257 2261 2281 2283 2291 2301 2307 2321 2323 2325 2327 2331 2359 2361 2373 2383 2393

vii

FOREWORD

ver the course of the years the English language has changed; it continues to change. When The Jerusalem Bible was published in 1966 it was the first full translation of the Bible into modern English. The translation of the biblical text itself was in fact a secondary initiative in that edition of the Bible. The primary purpose of The Jerusalem Bible was to make available to the English-speaking public the theological richness of the French Bible de Jérusalem elaborated over the previous twenty years at the French biblical school in Jerusalem. There, a team of scholars had applied to biblical study the advances of the previous century in archaeological, linguistic, literary and theological studies. It was also the era of the exciting discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which the École biblique had played a major part. The translation of the text was secondary to that of the notes and introductions; it arose out of a need to support the notes with a new translation. However, the editor, Alexander Jones, a former student of the École biblique, at that time teaching in Liverpool, saw that a fresh translation of the text was needed to support the scholarship of the theological notes and introductions. For this purpose he assembled a skilled and distinguished literary team, which ensured that the biblical translation was hailed as an achievement in its own right. Nevertheless, the principal feature of this Bible was the mediation of the results of biblical research. Until then a fully annotated Bible had not been part of the English biblical tradition. One of the aims of the great King James Version, since 1611 the template and model of all English Bibles, had been to avoid commentary and annotation. King James himself had prescribed the elimination of all notes, for such notes had served largely as weapons in interconfessional and indeed also political controversy. Soon after the publication of The Jerusalem Bible other modern translations began to appear, such as the Revised Standard Version and the Good News Bible (in the United States known as Today’s English Version) and the New International Version (1978). A major ix

FOREWORD

impetus was given to biblical studies and to the use of the Bible by the decree of the Second Vatican Council on the Bible, Lumen Gentium, and by the ecumenical movement, which rightly saw in the Bible a source of unity rather than a quarry for religious controversy. The appearance of a fresh edition of the French Bible de Jérusalem, produced with the co-operation of scholars from a wide range of religious backgrounds and named the La Bible Oecuménique (1976), prompted the English publishers, Darton, Longman and Todd, to initiate a second edition of The Jerusalem Bible. Knowledge of the Bible and of its background had advanced significantly in the decades since the original research in Jerusalem, and the progress of the ecumenical movement had made available a broader base of scholarship. As regards the text of the Bible it was also realised that the translations had relied too heavily on the French edition rather than the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. For The New Jerusalem Bible (1985) the biblical text was revised, with closer attention to the original languages. For some Books of the Bible a completely new translation seemed necessary. The introductions and notes to the Books were revised and partially re-written, though still under the remote supervision of the École biblique. Every change required the permission of the Director of the School, which was on the whole courteously given, though very rarely international pressure had to be applied. Two decades later a request from the African biblical apostolate for a cheaper edition of The Jerusalem Bible led to a complete revision of the supporting material, independent of the Jerusalem school, though for financial reasons the biblical text of 1966 was retained. This was published by the Catholic Truth Society of London as The CTS New Catholic Bible in 2008. The supporting material produced for that edition has formed the basis of the present edition. The biblical text here presented is, however, a wholesale revision of the Jerusalem Bible text, chiefly under three guiding principles. The Bible was written to be proclaimed aloud rather than studied in silence; it is important, therefore, that the message of the Bible should be read out and heard intelligibly as well as understood in reflective meditation. Attention has also been given to rendering the language and imagery of the original languages accurately rather than by dynamic equivalence. Further, every attempt has also been made to show that the message of the Bible is directed to women and men equally, despite the inbuilt bias of the English language. x

FOREWORD

1:1

Two important features of the Jerusalem Bible tradition and an innovation deserve mention. The marginal references, which contribute so much to the understanding of a text, have been rationalised. A New Testament text can often be fully appreciated only if it is realised that the passage is built on and assumes knowledge of an Old Testament background. Such key-references should not be drowned by reference to less important allusions. The Index to the Notes makes it possible to find in the notes the most important key-explanations of words, themes and ideas, together with the basic cross-references. As an innovation to make texts more immediately intelligible to current readers, ancient systems of measuring and timing (how many cubits were there in a stade?; how long was a Roman hour?) have been replaced by modern, metric equivalents. There is, therefore, no table of weights and measures. In this rapidly changing world monetary equivalents would soon be out of date, and in any case needs and opportunities for the use of money are utterly different. A word might be helpful about some details. Only just a detail is the Revised Grail Psalter. The original Grail Psalter (1963), nominally produced by the Ladies of the Grail, but with Hubert Richards as an important consultant, was revised in the early twentyfirst century by Abbot Gregory Polan and monks of Conception Abbey, with modest contributions from the present editor of the RNJB, and finally published in 2008. Abbot Gregory kindly allowed a few ameliorations for the Psalter’s use in this edition of the RNJB. Two other details concern names. Soon after his election as Pope, Benedict XVI was approached by the Chief Rabbi of Rome who said that the use of a possible vocalisation of the divine name was offensive to Jews. Pope Benedict submitted the matter to the Pontifical Biblical Commission and we recommended the use of ‘Lord’, with small capitals, for YHWH, a suggestion which the Pope accepted. A further question arose over the translation of the Greek Christos. It has been pointed out that in some biblical writing, especially St Paul, this is both a confessional and an honorific title which should remain as such in translation. In other writings, however, especially the gospels, it is used to express that Jesus is precisely the fulfilment of the messianic hopes. On these occasions, therefore, it has been translated ‘Messiah’. Praise and thanks are due especially to Frank Moloney, who read through the whole script of the New Testament, to Karen Wilson, who copy-edited the whole, and to Andrew Carter, who made valuable suggestions about English usage throughout the xi

FOREWORD

volume. All these made substantial improvements. We would also like to thank Abbot Gregory Polan for making available the text of the New Grail Psalter for this edition, and generously permitting some minor changes in the text of the psalms. For this edition the Hebrew numbering of the psalms, espoused by the Ă&#x2030;cole biblique, rather than the Greek has been retained. My special thanks are due also to David Moloney, editorial director of Darton, Longman and Todd, who has worked tirelessly in preparing this volume for publication. Henry Wansbrough Ampleforth Abbey, York June 2019

xii

PREFACE Italics Italics in the New Testament indicate a quotation from the Old Testament. Marginal References The source of an italicised quotation in the text is always given first. Introductions and Notes It is assumed that a reader consulting the Notes will already have read the Introduction to a Book, so that material given in the Introductions is not normally repeated in the Notes. In the synoptic gospels the priority of Mk is assumed as a working hypothesis, so that notes given to a passage in Mk are not repeated in the parallel passages of Mt or Lk. For a passage parallel in Mt and Lk, notes given in Mt are not repeated in Lk. Abbreviations in the Notes and References Ch. Chapter Gk Greek Hebr. Hebrew ms, mss

manuscript(s)

New Testament

Old Testament

Past

Pastoral Letters (1-2 Tim, Ti)

v., vv.

verse(s)

+ further marginal references are given at the reference so marked =

parallel passage within the same Book

parallel passage in another Book

ď&#x192;

passage later used or quoted at the reference given

xiii

ABBREVIATIONS THE OLD TESTAMENT

Gn Genesis Ex Exodus Lv Leviticus Nb Numbers Dt Deuteronomy Jos The Book of Joshua Jg The Book of Judges Rt The Book of Ruth 1 S The First Book of Samuel 2 S The Second Book of Samuel 1 K The First Book of Kings 2 K The Second Book of Kings 1 Ch The First Book of Chronicles 2 Ch The Second Book of Chronicles Ezr The Book of Ezra Ne The Book of Nehemiah Tb Tobit Jdt Judith Est Esther 1 M The First Book of Maccabees 2 M The Second Book of Maccabees Jb Job Ps The Psalms Pr The Proverbs Qo Ecclesiastes/Qoheleth Sg The Song of Songs Ws The Book of Wisdom Si Ecclesiasticus/Ben Sira Is Isaiah Jr Jeremiah Lam Lamentations Ba Baruch Ezk Ezekiel xv

ABBREVIATIONS

Dn Daniel Hos Hosea Jl Joel Am Amos Ob Obadiah Jon Jonah Mi Micah Na Nahum Hab Habakkuk Zp Zephaniah Hg Haggai Zc Zechariah Ml Malachi

THE NEW TESTAMENT

Mt The Gospel according to Matthew Mk The Gospel according to Mark Lk The Gospel according to Luke Jn The Gospel according to John Ac Acts of the Apostles Rm Romans 1 Co 1 Corinthians 2 Co 2 Corinthians Ga Galatians Ep Ephesians Ph Philippians Col Colossians 1 Th 1 Thessalonians 2 Th 2 Thessalonians 1 Tm 1 Timothy 2 Tm 2 Timothy Tt Titus Phm Philemon Heb Hebrews Jm James 1 P 1 Peter 2 P 2 Peter 1 Jn 1 John 2 Jn 2 John 3 Jn 3 John Jude Jude Rv The Revelation to John xvi

THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Gospel according to

MATTHEW Introduction The first gospel comes second t Augustine seems to have been responsible for putting the Gospel of Matthew first in the order of the four gospels, and it is always printed at the head of the gospels. In the early Church it seems to have been the most popular and widespread of the gospels, and until the 1967 reforms of the Lectionary it was the gospel read most frequently in the liturgy. However, it was almost certainly the second gospel to be written, for it uses and expands on Mark, expressing Matthew’s own particular angle on the good news of Jesus. It contains far more of the teaching of Jesus than does Mark. Most scholars think that Matthew and Luke both drew this teaching from a collection of Sayings of the Lord which has since disappeared, though some attribute the elaboration to Matthew’s own work.

Matthew and Judaism Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels, insisting on every page that Jesus fulfils the promises of the old Law. Jesus is a second David, adopted by Joseph into the House of David (1:18–25), addressed frequently as ‘son of David’ (1:1; 9:27; 15:22), and hailed as the messianic king of David’s line (21:9). Matthew also depicts him as a second Moses (2:20, compare Ex 4:19), who forms a new people of God, just as Moses formed the people of God in the Old Testament (16:18). In Mark Jesus re-interpreted the Law; in Matthew Jesus gives a whole new interpretation of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount (5:17–20), which perfects the old, bringing it to completion by interpreting it in accordance with the scriptural principle, ‘My pleasure is in mercy, not sacrifice’ (Ho 6:6; Mt 9:13; 12:7; cf. 23:23). So it is the old Law read in a new way. 3

Matthew

Nevertheless, Matthew is deeply Jewish in his thinking. He is much less absolute than Mark on the abolition of such Jewish practices as the Sabbath and the prohibitions of eating certain foods (compare Mk 7:19 with Mt 15:17). He shows Jesus acting always carefully in accordance with scriptural precedent (12:5, 11). With habitual Jewish reverence he avoids using the name ‘God’, speaking of ‘the kingdom of Heaven’ rather than ‘the kingdom of God’, with very rare exceptions. Yet at the same time there is stern criticism of current Judaism, especially Pharisaic Judaism as it was lived in Matthew’s own day. The Jewish leaders, the scribes and Pharisees are heavily criticised for their concept of righteousness (5:20), for their hypocrisy (23:1–36) and for their performance in public of the three classic good works of Judaism – fasting, prayer and almsgiving (6:1–18). Right at the beginning the Jewish King Herod is sharply contrasted with the gentile Magi, when he attempts to kill Jesus and they bring their gifts to the newborn child (2:1–18). Of the centurion of Capernaum Jesus says, ‘in no one in Israel have I found faith as great as this’ (8:10). In his parables Matthew’s Gospel underlines that the Jewish leaders are no longer the custodians of the vineyard of Israel (21:43), and that their city is doomed to be destroyed (22:7). A hint of why this may be is occasionally given: they will ‘scourge you in their synagogues’ (10:17) suggests a background of persecution of Christians by Jews – or rather, in Matthew’s situation, of Christian Jews by Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Christ (11:21–24). They had failed to accept that one greater than Solomon (12:42), one greater than the Temple was present (12:6). Such a background of persecution and mutual hostility goes far to account for the terrible saying which has been at the root of so much Christian anti-Semitism, ‘his blood be on us and on our children!’ (27:25). The exalted Christ More clearly than in Mark, Jesus is an exalted figure, as though he were already the risen Christ. In some of the miracle-stories the crowd scenes have melted away to leave a solemn and solitary confrontation between Jesus and the sufferer (compare Mk 1:29–31 with Mt 8:14–15; Mk 5:27 with Mt 9:20). His exalted status cannot remain hidden. At the final judgement it will be Jesus enthroned with his holy angels who exercises the divine prerogative of judgement (25:31). Far sooner than in Mark, human beings recognise Jesus as ‘Son of God’, Peter confessing him as such when in Mark the disciples are still utterly puzzled (14:33; 16:16; compare Mk 4

Matthew

6:51–52). As Mark is the story of the gradual understanding of the meaning of Jesus as ‘Son of God’, so Matthew goes one step further and is the revelation of what it means that through Jesus God is with us. At the outset the child is to be named ‘Emmanuel’, which means ‘God-is-with-us’ (1:23), and at the end the risen Christ promises to be always with his people (28:20, bracketing the gospel at beginning and end). In the great chapter on the community he promises that when two or three are gathered together, there he is in the midst of them (18:20). This promise is the source of their authority, which makes the decisions of the community binding also in heaven. Just as in the Old Testament the people of God is made holy by the presence of God among them, at first in the Tent of Meeting and later in the Temple, so the new people of God is made holy by the presence of Christ. Matthew on the community While in Mark all the emphasis is on the arrival in Jesus of the Sovereignty or kingdom of God, Matthew makes far more provision for the permanence of this community of the Church. In Mark Jesus makes little or no provision for the future of his community, as though the world might come to an end at any moment. In Matthew the promise of Christ’s divine presence in the Church brings with it provision for a structure of authority, a machinery for achieving reconciliation (18:15–17), an authority for making decisions, conferred both on the community and on Peter himself (16:18; 18:18). Jesus’ chosen Twelve will have a position of judgement, sitting on twelve thrones (19:28), though this does not contradict the fact that all are still brothers in the Church (23:8–12). This may be the reason why Matthew quietly omits much of the criticism of the Twelve which occurs in Mark. There is a whole chapter on how missioners should behave and how they should be received (10:1–42). The need for continuing good works is emphasised: good works are like a wedding garment (22:11), like oil prepared for long-burning lamps (25:7), and will finally be the criterion on which all people will be judged (25:45). Matthew’s poetry Much of Matthew’s power comes from what can only be described as his poetry. The rhythm of the sayings is beautifully balanced, often with a neat double opposition: ‘grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles’, (7:16); ‘the harvest is rich but the labourers are few’ (9:37). The same balance is seen in the parables. While Mark’s parables are all about nature (seed, growth, harvest), all the long 5

Matthew

parables in Matthew are about people, contrasting good and bad in a black-and-white opposition: building a house on rock or sand (7:24–27); the ten wedding attendants (25:1–13); the sheep and the goats (25:31–46). Matthew is a skilled teacher. He likes to use memorable and repeated formulas, ‘You have learnt how it was said…, but I say this to you…’ (5:21–48), or the formula with which he fourteen times introduces an Old Testament quotation. The teaching of Jesus is easier to assimilate because it is gathered together into five great discourses arranged symmetrically: entry into the Kingdom (chapters 5–7, the Sermon on the Mount); external relations (10, the Mission Discourse); parables of the Kingdom (13); internal relations (18); final judgement in the Kingdom (24–25). His imagery helps to make the sayings memorable, for example the use of animals as symbols of qualities (cunning as snakes, harmless as doves, 10:16), and he delights in pairs of images, often contrasting (wide road and narrow gate, 7:13–14, bird’s-nest and foxhole, 8:20). The author Who, then, was the author of this gospel? All the gospels were originally anonymous but this one, ‘according to Matthew’, has been associated with the apostle Matthew, one of the Twelve, since the beginning of the second century. It is true that the name ‘Matthew’ is substituted for ‘Levi’ in Mark’s story of the call of the apostle (Mt 9:9, Mk 2:14), but it is hard to believe that anyone would recount his own call by Jesus in the words of another. This apostle would also have been of a great age when it came to the detailed task of composing this finely-honed work, for it must have been written well after Mark (ad 65). Perhaps Matthew sponsored the gospel as the authentic message of Christ; perhaps it is merely the gospel in which the story about Matthew occurs. The question must remain open; the name of the author is not of paramount importance. At least the attitude to Judaism fits the relationship of Judaism and Christianity right at the end of the first century. It has been suggested that the place of composition was Antioch on the Syrian coast, a great city which contained an important Jewish colony, a significant number of whom became Christians. It is the only gospel quoted by St Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, in his letters written around the time ad 108.

Matthew

Plan of the gospel I II III IV V VI

The birth and infancy of Jesus The kingdom of Heaven is announced The kingdom of Heaven is proclaimed The mystery of the kingdom of Heaven The Church, first-fruits of the Kingdom The approaching advent of the kingdom of Heaven VII Passion and resurrection

1–2 3–7 8–10 11:1–13:52 13:53–18:35 19–25 26–28

Note: Comments on material which Mt shares with Mk are given under the parallel passage of Mk. The footnotes of Mk should therefore be consulted.

The Gospel according to

MATTHEW I. THE BIRTH AND INFANCY OF JESUS The ancestry of Jesusa

Roll of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, son of David, son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse; and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,

a. The purpose of Mt 1 is to show that Jesus was the son of David. He was adopted into the house of David by Joseph not on Joseph’s own initiative but at the behest of the angel. The genealogy connects Jesus with the great figures of

the promise and of Israel’s history. The names are divided, with some juggling, into three series of 2 x 7 names. All four mothers included entered the line through some extraordinary circumstance.

1:10 Matthew Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah; and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers. Then the deportation to Babylon took place.

After the deportation to Babylon, Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Achim, Achim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary; of her was born Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, fourteen from David to the Babylonian deportation, and from the Babylonian deportation to the Messiah fourteen generations.

Joseph adopts Jesus as his son

The birth of Jesus the Messiah happened like this. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph;b but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. •Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to disgrace, decided to dismiss her quietly.c •He had this in mind when suddenly an angel of the Lordd appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ •All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:e Look, the virgin f is with child and will give birth to a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,

Is 7:14

b. Betrothal could be dissolved only by an act of repudiation. c. Two explanations are given. 1 Joseph thinks the child was engendered by another man, but does not want to expose Mary to shame. 2 Knowing that the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Joseph thinks himself unworthy to proceed, until the angel informs him of his task of adopting Jesus by naming him.

d. Angels and dreams occur frequently in Mt and Lk as vehicles of a divine message. e. This and similar formulae will be frequent in Mt, who presents each section of his infancy narrative as a fulfilment of scripture. f. The Hebr. has only ‘young woman’; the Gk has ‘virgin’, which enables Mt to see Mary’s virginal conception as a fulfilment of scripture. The NT normally quotes from the Gk version of the OT.

18 19 20

21 22

24 25

Matthew

2:13

which means ‘God-is-with-us’. •When Joseph woke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took her as his wife. •He had not had intercourse with her when she gave birthg to a son, and he named him Jesus.

The visit of the wise men

1 2 3 4 5

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judaea during the time of King Herod,a suddenly some wise men from the eastb came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.’ •When King Herod heard this he was perturbed, and the whole of Jerusalem with him. •He called together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, and enquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. •They told him, ‘At Bethlehem in Judaea, for this is what was written by the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least among the leaders of Judah, for from you will come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.’

Mi 5:1

Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and made certain from them the exact time when the star had appeared,c •and sent them on to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and find out accurately about the child, and when you have 9 found him, report back to me, so that I too may go to worship him.’ •When they had heard the king, they set out. And see, the star they had seen at its rising went before them until it halted over the place where the child was. 10 11 Seeing the star, they rejoiced with very great joy, •and going into the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and falling down they worshipped him. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold and 12 frankincense and myrrh.d •But having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by a different way. 7 8

The flight into Egypt and the massacre of the innocents 13

After they had left, see, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up. Take the child and his mother, flee into Egypt and stay

g. This suggests nothing about future sexual relations between Mary and Joseph. By naming the child, Joseph accepts him as his son, for only a father names a son (Lk 1:63). a. King Herod the Great’s attempt to kill Jesus echoes Pharaoh’s attempt to kill Moses, for Jesus is presented in Mt as a second Moses, a second lawgiver and leader of the people of God, cf. 4:2a, 5:2. Such infanticide was quite consonant with Herod the Great’s brutality. b. There is also a strong contrast between the rejection of Jesus by the Jews and his acceptance by the gentile wise men (echoed later in the rejection

by Caiaphas and acceptance by Pilate). The east is the legendary home of wise men, cf. Jb 2:11. c. The appearance of a star is recorded at the birth of other great men. It also fulfils Nb 24:17. It is futile to look for a natural explanation. d. The wealth and perfumes of Arabia, Jr 6:20; Ezk 27:22. It fulfils also the homage paid by the nations to the God of Israel, Nb 24:17; Ps 72 (Gk 71):10–15; Is 60:5.

2:14 Matthew there until I tell you, for Herod intends to search for the child to destroy him.’ •So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother by night, left for Egypt •and stayed there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying:

14 15

I called my son out of Egypt.

Ho 11:1

Then Herod, seeing that he had been fooled by the wise men, was furious, and sent and killed in Bethlehem and its surrounding district all the male children who were two years old or less, according to the time he had been careful to ask the wise men. •Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:e A voice was heard in Ramah, lamenting and much weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted because they are no more.

Jr 31:15

Return to Nazareth Ex 4:19–20

When Herod had died, see, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt •saying, ‘Get up. Take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ •So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother, went to the land of Israel. But when he learnt that Archelausf was king of Judaea in place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there, and, being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the region of Galilee. •There he settled in a town called Nazareth so that what had been spoken through the prophets should be fulfilled:

19 20 21 22 23

‘He will be called a Nazarene’.g

II. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS ANNOUNCED A. Narrative section //Mk 1:1–8; //Lk 3:1–18 Mk 1:4

The proclamation of John the Baptist

In those days, John the Baptist came, proclaiming in the desert of Judaea, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of Heavena has drawn near.’ •This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said:

e. Originally this text depicted Rachel weeping for the people of the northern kingdom, massacred and deported by Assyria. But Rachel’s tomb was located near Bethlehem, Gn 35:19. f. Herod’s eldest son, ethnarch of Judaea from 4 bc till he was deposed in ad 6.

g. This is not from any known scripture. It may be an attempt by Mt to combine a popular etymology of the place-name with the nazir of Jg 13:5, 7. a. Expression normally used by Mt for the more usual ‘kingdom of God’, Mk 1:15j, to avoid use of the divine name.

1 2 3

Matthew

3:17

A voice of one crying in the desert, ‘Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Is 40:3

John himself wore a garment of camel-hair with a leather belt round his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. •Then Jerusalem and all Judaea and the whole region around the Jordan district kept going out to him, •and they were baptised by him in the River Jordan as they confessed their sins. •But seeing many of the Phariseesb and Sadduceesc coming for baptism he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrathd to come? •Produce fruit worthy of repentance, •and do not be satisfied with saying to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you, God can raise children for Abraham from these stones. •Even now the axe is being laid to the root of the trees, so any tree failing to produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire. •I baptise you with water for repentance, but the one who comes after me is more powerful than I, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. •His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that never goes out.’

Jesus is baptised 13 14 15 16

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. •John tried to prevent him,e saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, and yet do you come to me?’ •But Jesus replied, ‘Leave it for the time being; for so it is fitting that we should fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he allowed him. •And when Jesus had been baptised he at once came up from the water, and see, the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him.f •And see, a voice from heaven, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.’

b. The Pharisees (the word is probably derived from ‘separate’) were scrupulous observers of the Law and the traditions of the elders. Their elaborate casuistry could sometimes lead to hypocrisy and frustration of the true purpose of the Law. Numerous clashes arose between them and Jesus over attitudes to and interpretation of the Law, though they took no part in the death of Jesus, Mk 12:13b. Paul is proud of his Pharisaic heritage, Ac 23:7b; Ph 3:5. After the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70, the Pharisees were almost the only branch of Judaism to survive, and the bitterness between Judaism and Christianity is frequently reflected in NT criticism of the Pharisees, Mt 15:1–20; Mk 8:15; Jn 8:44e. c. The Sadducees rejected the oral tradition and many recent developments in theology, e.g. angels and the doctrine of a final resurrection, 22:23; Ac 23:8. They were more a political than a religious

group, often linked to the great priestly families and the Temple, Ac 4:1; 5:17. They disappeared in the Fall of Jerusalem in ad 70. d. John’s purpose was to prepare a community of repentance, ready for the coming of the Messiah. His message was stern and threatening. Although he pointed out Jesus as God’s messenger, Jn 1:29– 34, he was puzzled by Jesus’ activity, Mt 11:2a. e. Jesus’ submission to John at the baptism shocked the earliest Christians. Lk removed John from the baptismal account, Lk 3:20. Jn has no account of the baptism of Jesus. Mt inserts this little dialogue, the purpose of which is to show that the baptism was a joint action of John and Jesus to ‘fulfil all righteousness’, two of Mt’s theological keywords, see 5:17b. f. In Mk the apocalyptic scene is a private experience of Jesus. In Mt it is a public declaration.

Am 5:18c

//Mk 1:9–11; //Lk 3:21–22

Ezk 1:1 Is 11:2

4:1 Matthew //Mk 1:12–13; //Lk 4:1–13

Testing in the desert

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit out into the desert to be put to the test by the devil. •He fasted for forty days and forty nights,a after which he was hungry, •and the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves.’ •But he replied, ‘It is written:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the parapet of the Temple, •and said to him, ‘If you are Son of God throw yourself down, for it is written: Ps 90 (Gk 89):10–12

3 4

5 6

He will give his angels orders about you, and they will carry you in their hands in case you trip on a stone.’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is also written:

Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

Dt 6:16

Next, taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. •And he said to him, ‘These shall all be yours if you fall at my feet and worship me.’ •Then Jesus replied, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written:

8 9 10

The Lord your God shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’

Dt 6:13

Then the devil left him, and see, angels appeared and looked after him.

1:22e

A human lives not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

Dt 8:3

//Mk 1:14–15; //Lk 4:14

Return to Galilee

Hearing that John had been arrested he withdrew to Galilee, •and leaving Nazara he went and settled in Capernaum, beside the lake, on the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali. •This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:

Is 8:23–9:1

Land of Zebulun! Land of Naphtali! Way of the sea beyond Jordan. Galilee of the nations!

The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light;

a. Like Moses, Ex 24:18; 34:28; Dt 9:18, and Elijah, 1 K 19:8, Jesus prepares by forty days and forty nights in the desert. He is the second Moses, Mt 2:1a, and in Mt the temptations climax in his seeing all the earth from the high mountain, as

12 13

Moses did, Dt 34:1–4. The temptations by which he is tested are the same as those of Israel in the desert, Dt 8:3; 6:16, 13. Each is repulsed in a rabbinic-style scriptural argument, fitting to Mt’s Jewish background.

Matthew

5:5

on those who lived in a country and shadow of death a light has dawned. 17

18 19 20 21 22

23 24

From then onwards Jesus began his proclamation with the message, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.’

The first four disciples are called

//Mk 1:16–20; //Lk 5:1–11

Jesus proclaims the message and heals the sick

=9:35; //Mk 1:39; //Lk 4:14–15

As he was walking by the Lake of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; they were making a cast into the lake with their net, for they were fishermen. •And he said to them, ‘Come after me and I will make you fishers of people.’ •And at once they left their nets and followed him. •Going on from there he saw another pair of brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they were in their boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. •And at once, leaving the boat and their father, they followed him. He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and illness among the people. •His fame spread throughout Syria, and they brought to him all those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralysed, and he cured them. Large crowds followed him, coming from Galilee, the Decapolis,b Jerusalem, Judaea and beyond the Jordan.

//Mk 3:7–8; //Lk 6:17–18

B. The Sermon on the Mounta The beatitudes

1 2

3 4 5

//Lk 6:20–23

Seeing the crowds, he went onto the mountain.b And when he was seated his disciples came to him. •Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: ‘Blessed c are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Blessed are the gentle,d for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

b. A group of ten Hellenistic cities, mostly on the east side of the Jordan, and as far north as Damascus. a. The first of five discourses in Mt, composed from sayings pronounced on various occasions. The discourses are arranged concentrically: 1 the Sermon on the Mount, chs 5–7, on conditions for belonging to the Kingdom, balances 5, rewards and punishments, chs 24–25; 2 balances 4, ch. 10 and ch. 18 respectively, on the community; central is 3, images of the Kingdom in parables, ch. 13.

b. Jesus gives his new law enthroned on a mountain as a second Moses. c. On such beatitudes see Ps 1:1a. These eight beatitudes balance neatly, enclosed by the kingdom of Heaven, v. 3 and v. 10. The last in each quatrain is defined by righteousness, v. 6 and v. 10. In Gk each quatrain contains the same number of words. Unlike Lk’s four beatitudes, Lk 6:20–23, in Mt they are concerned primarily with spiritual attitudes. d. This attitude is the opposite of pompousness, best exemplified by Jesus’ entry in simplicity as king into Jerusalem, 21:5.

Zp 2:3a Gn 13:15; Ps 36 (Gk 35):11

5:6 Matthew Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful,e for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of righteousness, for the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

5:20h

‘Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. •Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you. //Mk 9:50; //Lk 14:34–35 //Mk 4:21; //Lk 8:16; =11:33

6 7 8 9 10

11 12

Salt and light

‘You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, what can make it salty again? It is no longer good for anything, and can only be thrown out to be trampled underfoot. •You are the light of the world. A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden. •No one lights a lamp and puts it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house. •In the same way your light must shine for people, so that they may see your good works and give praise to your Father in heaven.

13 14 15 16

The perfection of the Law

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete.f •Ameng I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one dot, not one little stroke, will pass from the Law until everything is achieved. •Therefore, anyone who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of Heaven; but anyone who keeps them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of Heaven.

17 18 19

The new standard surpasses the old

‘For I tell you, if your righteousness does not surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of Heaven.h

e. This is the quality by which all legal observance must be tempered and judged, according to Mt, see 9:13c. It mirrors the divine mercy. f. Mt sees the way of Jesus as the fulfilment of the OT and the completion of the Law. How this is the case becomes clearer and clearer in the course of the gospel. The examples of 5:21–46 are especially important. ‘Righteousness’ is a translation of the Gk dikaiosune, which also means ‘justice’, i.e. observance of the Law. For Mt the follower of Christ must obey the Law, but in Jesus’ own more perfect way, 7:21; 9:13c; 28:20. g. This Aramaic word amen was clearly a feature of Jesus’ speech (doubled, according to Jn 1:51

etc.). It comes from the root denoting firmness, fulfilment and stability, cf. 2 Co 1:17–20, where there is word-play on this notion and on Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s promises. h. A typical rabbinic teaching method was to give a heading, v. 20, followed by examples, vv. 21–48. So also 6:1, 2–18. Similarly, ‘You have heard it said…but I say this to you’ is a typical rabbinic way of introducing a new teaching. There is no simple formula for the novelty of Jesus’ interpretations of ‘righteousness’ here: some are stricter, some more interior, some more generous, some more universally demanding.

21 22

23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

31 32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Matthew

5:44

‘You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, “You shall not murder”; and whoever murders must answer for it before the court. •But I say this to you, anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will answer for it before the court; anyone who calls a brother or sister “idiot”i will answer for it before the assembly; and anyone who calls a brother or sister “fool” will answer for it in hell fire. •So then, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, •leave your gift there before the altar, go and first be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. •Come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the way to the court together, or your opponent may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the attendant, and you will be thrown into prison. •Amen I say to you, you will not get out till you have paid the last coin. ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” •But I say this to you, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. •If your right eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; for it is better for you to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body thrown into hell. •And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; for it is better for you to lose one part of yourself than to have your whole body go to hell. ‘It has also been said, “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ of dismissal.” •But I say this to you, everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of an illicit marriage, makes her commit adultery; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. ‘Again, you have heard how it was said to the ancients, “You must not break your oath, but must fulfil your oaths to the Lord.” •But I say this to you, do not swear at all,j either by heaven, since that is God’s throne; •or by earth, since that is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, since that is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your own head either, since you cannot turn a single hair white or black. •Let your word be, “Yes, yes”, “No, no”; anything more than this comes from the Evil One. ‘You have heard how it was said: “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” •But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked.k On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; •if someone wishes to go to law with you to get your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. •And if anyone requires you to go one mile, go two miles with him. •Give to anyone who asks you, and do not turn away from one who wants to borrow from you. ‘You have heard how it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy”.l •But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those i. The Aramaic raqa is extremely insulting. There is not necessarily a gradation between the two halves of the verse; both lead on to v. 23. j. Jesus teaches that there should be such an atmosphere of truth and sincerity that mere assertion suffices without invoking the divinity. k. Ex 21:24 limited the right of vengeance; this teaching abolishes it and demands a response of generosity. Jesus is a charismatic teacher, forming

attitudes, not a legislator constructing a legal code. l. The second half of this command occurs nowhere in scripture, though Si 12:4–7 is quite similar. The point of Jesus’ teaching, however, is that his followers may exclude no one from their love, just as God excludes no one. The six antitheses begin with a prohibition of hate, and end with a demand for love as perfect as the Father’s love.

//Lk 12:58–59

=18:8–9

Dt 24:1a; =19:9b

Ex 20:7

Ex 21:24

Lv 19:18 //Lk 6:27–36

5:45 Matthew who persecute you; •so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the evil as well as the good, and sends down rain on the righteous and the wicked alike. •For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers and sisters, are you doing anything exceptional? •Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

45 46 47 48

Good works done in secret

‘Be careful not to parade your righteousness before others to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.a •So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win human admiration. Amen I say to you, they have had their reward. •But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right is doing, •so that your almsgiving may be in secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. ‘And whenever you pray, do not be like hypocrites: they love to pray standing in the synagogues and at street corners for people to see them. Amen I say to you, they have had their reward. •But whenever you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. •In your prayers do not babble as gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. •Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him. •Pray, then, like this:b ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily c bread. And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. And do not put us to the test, but save us from the Evil One.d

//Lk 11:2–4

//Mk 11:25

‘For if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; •but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.

a. First the principle, then the application, 5:20h, each time with the same formulae, to the three classic good works of Judaism, almsgiving, prayer and fasting. b. In Mt’s more elaborate form the Lord’s Prayer has 7 petitions, a favourite number with Mt: 2 x 7 generations (1:17), 7 parables (13:3– 50), forgiveness not 7 but 77 times (18:22), 7 accusations against the Pharisees (23:13–32). It

contains several formulae beloved of Mt: ‘Father in heaven’, ‘your will’, ‘earth as in heaven’. The first three petitions are all for the coming of the Kingdom, the latter four for human needs. c. The Gk word is obscure; it may also mean ‘necessary’ or ‘for tomorrow’. d. Or ‘from evil’. Some mss add, ‘For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen’, possibly through liturgical influence.

1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18

Matthew

7:4

‘Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy look as hypocrites do: they go about looking unsightly to show others they are fasting. Amen I say to you, they have had their reward. •But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, •so that you may not seem to others to be fasting but only to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

True treasures

19 20 21

‘Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and woodworm destroy and thieves break in and steal. •But store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworm destroys and thieves do not break in and steal. •For where your treasure is, there will your heart be too.

//Lk 12:33–34

The eye, lamp of the body 22 23

‘The lamp of the body is the eye. So if your eye is clear, your whole body will be filled with light. •But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be darkness. If, then, the light within you is darkness, what darkness will that be!

//Lk 11:34–35

God and money

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

‘No one can be the slave of two masters: a person will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.

//Lk 16:13

Trust in providence

//Lk 12:22–31

‘Therefore I tell you not to worry about your life, what you should eat, nor about your body, what you should wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing! •Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? •Can any of you, by worrying, add one single cubit to your span of life? •And why worry about clothing? Learn from the grasses of the fields, how they grow; they neither work nor spin, •yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. •Now if God so clothes the grasses of the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more clothe you, who have so little faith? •So do not worry; do not say, “What should we eat? What should we drink? What should we wear?” •It is the gentiles who strive for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. •Strive first for his kingdom, and righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. •So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Do not judge

1 2 3 4

‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; •because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the standard you use will be the standard used for you. •Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the log in your own? •And will you say to your brother, “Let me take that splinter out of your eye,” when, see, there is a log in your 19

//Lk 6:37–42 //Mk 4:24

7:5 Matthew

//Lk 11:9–13

own? •Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. ‘Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls in front of pigs, or the pigs may trample them and then turn on you and tear you to pieces. ‘Ask, and it will be given to you;a search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. •Everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; to everyone who knocks the door will be opened. •Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, would give a stone? •Or, if your child asks for a fish, would give a snake? •If you, then, evil as you are, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Conclusion //Lk 6:31 //Lk 13:24; Dt 30:15; Ps 1; Pr 4:18–19

=12:33; //Lk 6:43–44

//Lk 6:46–49

=11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1 //Mk 1:22

‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you;b that is the Law and the Prophets. •Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and many take it; •but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it. ‘Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. •You will know them by their fruits. Can people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? •In the same way, a sound tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree bad fruit. •A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit. •Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. •Indeed, you will know them by their fruits. ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, only the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. •On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, do many deeds of power in your name?” •Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you; away from me, evil-doers! •Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible person who built a house on rock. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall: it was founded on rock. •But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid person who built a house on sand. •Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!’ When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, •because he taught them as one having authority, not like their scribes.

a. The passives here are ‘theological passives’, i.e. to avoid using the divine name. They could be phrased, ‘Knock and God will open the door to you’ etc.

b. This maxim was widespread in the ancient world in the negative form, e.g. Tb 4:15. The positive form is more demanding. Mt uses it to sum up the teaching of the Sermon before his concluding pairs of contrasting images.

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Matthew

8:17

III. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS PROCLAIMED

A. Narrative section: ten wondersa Cure of a man with leprosy

1 2 3 4

After he had come down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. And see, a leper came up and worshipped him, saying, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can cleanse me.’ •Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him saying, ‘I am willing. Be cleansed.’ And at once his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and make the offering prescribed by Moses, as evidence to them.’b

Cure of the centurion’s servant

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

When he went into Capernaum a centurion came up and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed and in terrible pain.’ Jesus said to him, ‘I will come myself and cure him.’ •The centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured. •For I am under authority myself and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man, “Go,” and he goes; to another, “Come,” and he comes; to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’ •When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him, ‘Amen I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found faith as great as this. •And I tell you that many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feastc in the kingdom of Heaven; •but the children of the kingdomd will be thrown out into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ •And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go back; let this be done for you, as you have believed.’ And the servant was cured at that hour.

Cure of Peter’s mother-in-law 14 15 16 17

And going into Peter’s house Jesus found Peter’s mother-in-law e lying down and feverish. •He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. •That evening they brought him many who were possessed by demons. He drove out the spirits with a command and cured all who were sick. •This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: He himself bore our sicknesses away and carried our diseases. a. Mt assembles ten stories of wonders (in three groups), which show Jesus’ power and compassion, the dawning of the messianic age. They show him overcoming sickness, fear, alienation, death and the power of evil. Mt often shortens the stories he finds in Mk . He especially stresses the faith in Jesus’ power to save, which the wonders presuppose, 8:10, 13, 26; 9:2, 22, 29; 14:31; 15:28; 17:20; 21:21, and confirm. b. By omitting the final verse of the Markan story Mt leaves the emphasis on Jesus’ instructions

//Mk 1:40–45; //Lk 5:12–16

Lv 14:1–32 //Lk 7:1–10; //Jn 4:46–53

//Lk 13:28–29

8:1a

//Mk 1:29–31; //Lk 4:38–39

//Mk 1:32–34; //Lk 4:40–41

1:22e; Is 53:4

to obey the Law of Moses. c. The messianic banquet, Is 25:6, or wedding-feast, features repeatedly in the teaching of Jesus, 22:2–14a; 26:29a; Mk 2:19a, cf. Jn 2:1–12; Rv 3:20; 19:9. d. The due subjects of the kingdom are the Jews, the natural heirs of the promises to Abraham. e. Mt’s simplification of this story leaves a direct and solemn confrontation between Jesus and the sick person. See also 9:20–22.

8:18 Matthew //Lk 9:57–60

Mk 2:10c

//Mk 4:35–41; //Lk 8:22–25

//Mk 5:1–20; //Lk 8:26–29

Mk 3:11b

//Mk 2:1–12; //Lk 5:17–26

Many curesf

When Jesus saw many crowds all about him he gave orders to leave for the other side. •One of the scribes then came up and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ •Jesus said, ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another man, one of the disciples, said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ •But Jesus said, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their dead.’

18 19 20 21 22

The calming of the stormg

And when he got into the boat his disciples followed him. •And see, a storm broke over the lake, so violent that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. •And they went up to him and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us, we are lost.’ •And he said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, you who have so little faith?’ Then he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. •They were astounded and said, ‘Whatever kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’

23 24 25 26 27

The demoniacs of Gadarah

When he reached the territory of the Gadarenes on the other side, two demoniacs came towards him out of the tombs – they were so dangerously violent that nobody could pass along that way. •Suddenly they shouted, ‘What do you want with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torture us before the time?’ •Now some distance away there was a large herd of pigs feeding, •and the demons pleaded with Jesus, ‘If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.’ •And he said to them, ‘Go!’ and they came out and made for the pigs; and suddenly the whole herd charged down the cliff into the lake and perished in the water. •The herdsmen ran off and made for the city, where they told the whole story, including what had happened to the demoniacs. •Now the whole city set out to meet Jesus; and as soon as they saw him they implored him to leave their neighbourhood.

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Cure of a paralytic

He got back in the boat, crossed the water and came to his home town. And suddenly some people brought him a paralytic stretched out on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Take comfort, my child, your sins are forgiven.’ •And now some scribes said to themselves, ‘This man

f. The three groups of ten wonders in Mt are punctuated by sayings on the demands of discipleship. To Jewish family sensibilities v. 22 is particularly shocking. g. In Mt’s version of this incident the disciples are less lacking in faith. Their approach to Jesus is confident, not, as in Mk, where it is sarcastic or reproachful. Accordingly, Jesus’ rebuke is gentler.

Mt has turned the story into a parable of the community, praying to the risen Lord amid the storms of life. h. Mt drastically simplifies Mk’s lively account. He also doubles the demoniac, as the blind men in 9:27 and 20:30. The variation in place name brings the incident closer to the lake, for Gadara is only 15km away – still a long run for a pig.

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8

Matthew

9:20

is blaspheming!’ •Knowing what was in their minds Jesus said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts? •Now, which of these is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? •But to prove to you that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ – then he said to the paralytic – ‘get up, pick up your bed and go off home.’ •And the man got up and went home. •A feeling of awe came over the crowd when they saw this, and they glorified God for giving such authority to humans.a

The call of Matthew 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17

18 19 20

As Jesus was walking on from there he saw a man named Matthewb sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. •Now while he was at table in the house it happened that see, a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. •When the Pharisees saw this they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ •When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. •Go and learn what this means, My pleasure is in mercy, not sacrifice.c And indeed I came to call not the righteous, but sinners.’

//Mk 2:13–14; //Lk 5:27–28

//Mk 2:15–16; //Lk 5:29–32

Ho 6:6; =12:7; 23:23

A discussion on fasting

//Mk 2:18–22; //Lk 5:33–39

Cure of a woman with a haemorrhage The official’s daughter raised to life

//Mk 5:21–43; //Lk 8:40–56

Then John’s disciples came to him and said, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ •Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. •No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth onto an old cloak, because the patch pulls away from the cloak and a worse tear happens. •Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost. No; they put new wine into fresh skins and both are preserved.’d

While he was speaking to them, suddenly one of the officials came up, who worshipped him and said, ‘My daughter has just died,e but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.’ •Jesus rose and, with his disciples, followed him. •Then suddenly from behind him came a woman, who had been suffering from a haemorrhage for twelve years, and she touched the

a. The plural shows that Mt envisages not only Jesus’ own power to forgive sin, but the power he entrusted to Peter and to the community, 16:19; 18:18. b. In Mk and Lk the story is the call of Levi. Mt merely changes the name. c. This quotation, inserted by Mt into Mk’s story, gives the principle of love, by which Jesus brings the Law to fulfilment. It is repeated at 12:7; cf. 23:23.

d. By this addition to the saying in Mk, Mt expresses the importance of preserving also the old wine of Judaism. e. In Mk’s story the girl is not yet dead when the story starts. Mt simplifies the story. He also makes the father, president of the synagogue in Mk, simply an ‘official’; Mt baulks at a wonder worked for a representative of official Judaism. The crowd is also suppressed, leaving Jesus in dignified isolation.

9:21 Matthew 8:14e

fringe of his tunic, •for she was thinking, ‘If only I can touch his tunic I shall be saved.’ •Jesus turned round and saw her; and he said to her, ‘Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you.’ And from that hour the woman was saved. •When Jesus reached the official’s house and saw the flute players, with the crowd making a commotion, he said, • ‘Get out of here; the little girl is not dead; she is asleep.’ And they ridiculed him. •But when the people had been turned out he went inside and took her by the hand; and she stood up. And the news of this spread all round the countryside.

21 22 23 24 25 26

Cure of two blind men

As Jesus went on from there two blind menf followed him crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, son of David.’g •And when Jesus reached the house the blind men came up to him and he said to them, ‘Do you believe I can do this?’ They said, ‘Yes, Lord.’ •Then he touched their eyes saying, ‘According to your faith, let it be done to you.’ •And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus sternly warned them, ‘Take care that no one knows about this.’ •But when they had gone away, they talked about him all over the countryside. =12:22; //Lk 11:14–15

//Mk 3:22

27 28 29 30 31

Cure of a deaf demoniac

They had only just left when suddenly a deaf demoniac was brought to him. And when the demon had been driven out, the deaf man spoke and the people were amazed and said, ‘Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.’ But the Pharisees said, ‘It is through the prince of demons that he drives out demons.’

32 33 34

The distress of the crowds =4:23

//Lk 10:2; //Jn 4:35–38

Jesus made a tour through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness. •And when he saw the crowds he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. •Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers to his harvest.’

35 36 37

B. Instructions for apostlesa //Mk 3:13–15; //Lk 9:1 //Mk 3:16–19; //Lk 6:13–16

The mission of the Twelve

He summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, with power to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. •These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon who is known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee,

f. The cure seems to duplicate that of the blind man at Jericho, 20:29–34, or perhaps Mk’s story of the blind man of Bethsaida, Mk 8:22–26. All the stress is on their faith, 8:1a. g. In Mk, Jesus is hailed as son of David only at Mk 10:47. Mt makes much of this noble Jewish

title, 2 S 7:1a; Mt 1:1a; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30; 21:9, 15. a. Mt’s second discourse, 5:1a, treats the mission of Jesus’ disciples, as the fourth will treat their relationship together. Their primary mission is to the people of Israel, 10:6, 23.

1 2

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Matthew

10:27

and his brother John; •Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; •Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who was also his betrayer. • These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows: ‘Do not go into gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go instead to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. •And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. •Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. You received without charge, give without charge. •Keep no gold or silver, not even copper in your belts,b no bag for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or staff, for the labourer deserves his keep. •Whatever town or village you go into, seek out someone worthy and stay there until you leave. •As you enter the house, salute it, and if the house deserves it, may your peace come upon it; if it does not, may your peace come back to you. •And if anyone does not welcome you or listen to what you have to say, as you walk out of the house or town shake the dust from your feet. •Amen I say to you, on the Day of Judgement it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. •See, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be cunning as snakes, yet innocent as doves.

Persecution of missionersc 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25

‘Be prepared for people to hand you over to assemblies and scourge you in their synagogues. •You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as evidence to them and to the gentiles. •But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to speak or what to say; what you are to say will be given to you when the time comes, •because it is not you who will be speaking; the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you. ‘Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will come forward against their parents and have them put to death. •You will be universally hated on account of my name; but anyone who stands firm to the end will be saved. •When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. Amen I say to you, you will not have gone the round of the towns of Israel before the Son of man comes. ‘A disciple is not superior to the teacher, nor a servant to the master. It is enough for disciple to grow to be like teacher, and servant like master. If they have called the master of the house “Beelzebul”, how much more the members of his household?

Open and fearless speech 26 27

‘So do not be afraid of them. Everything now covered up will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. •What I say to you in

b. Kit allowed for the mission varies slightly from the first mission, vv. 5–16. Mt speaks of scourging one gospel to another, but the message remains the in ‘their’ and ‘your’ synagogues, v. 17; 23:34, persame: urgency permits no excess baggage. haps differentiated from ‘our synagogues’. c. vv. 17–39, part of which is found in Mk’s eschatological discourse, suppose a later situation than

//Mk 6:8–11; //Lk 9:3–5; 10:3–12

=11:24

//Mk 13:9–13; //Lk 21:12–19

=24:9, 13

//Lk 6:40; //Jn 13:16; 15:20

//Mk 4:22; //Lk 12:2–9

10:28 Matthew

//Mk 8:38; //Lk 9:26; 12:8–9

//Lk 12:51–53 Mi 7:6 //Mk 8:34–35; //Lk 9:23–24; 14:26–27

//Mk 9:37, 41; //Lk 9:48; //10:16; //Jn 12:44–45

the dark, tell in the light; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops. •Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. •Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? And yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father. •Of you, even the hairs on your head have been counted. •So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. •Everyone, therefore, who acknowledges me in the presence of others, I will acknowledge in the presence of my Father in heaven. •But whoever denies me in the presence of others, I will deny in the presence of my Father in heaven. •Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: I have come to bring not peace but a sword.

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

The cost of discipleship

‘For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-inlaw against mother-in-law; •a person’s enemies will be the members of that person’s own household. •No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. •Anyone who does not take the cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds life will lose it; anyone who loses life for my sake will find it. •Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. •Anyone who welcomes a prophet as a prophet will have a prophet’s reward; and anyone who welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will have the reward of a righteous person. Anyone who gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little onesd as a disciple, Amen I say to you, will most certainly not go without the reward.’

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

IV. THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

A. Narrative section 7:28+

//Lk 7:18–28

When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples he moved on from there to teach and proclaim the message in their towns.

The Baptist’s questiona

Now John had heard in prison what the Messiah was doing and he sent his disciples to ask him, •‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?’ •Jesus answered, ‘Go back and tell John what you hear and see; •the blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor;

d. In this context the ‘little ones’ are to be understood as the missioners. a. John’s message was one of divine retribution and fiery judgement, 3:7–12. When Jesus does

not fulfil this, he questions whether Jesus can be the Messiah. Jesus’ reply gives the interpretation of his healing wonders: they are the messianic fulfilment of the prophecies of Is 35:5; 61:1.

2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

Matthew

11:23

and blessed is anyone who does not find me a cause of stumbling.’ •As the men were leaving, Jesus began to talk to the people about John, ‘What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swaying in the breeze? •Then what did you go out to see? Someone wearing fine clothes? Look, those who wear fine clothes are to be found in royal palaces. •Then what did you go out for? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. •This is the one of whom it is written: Look, I am going to send my messenger ahead of you to prepare the way before you.

11 12 13 14 15

Ml 3:1

‘Amen I say to you, of the children born to women, none has been raised up greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he. •Since John the Baptist came, up to this present time, the kingdom of Heaven has been subjected to violence and the violent are taking it by storm.b •For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John the Baptist; •and he, if you will accept it, is Elijah who was to come.c •Anyone who has ears should listen!

17:11–13; //Lk 16:16

Parable of the playing children 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23

‘With whom can I compare this generation? It is like children shouting to the others as they sit in the marketplace, •“We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn’t beat your breasts.” •For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He is possessed.” •The Son of man came, eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.’d

//Lk 7:31–35

Lament over the lake-towns

//Lk 10:13–15

Then he began to reproach the towns in which most of his works of power had been done, because they did not repent. •‘Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida! For if the works of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon,e they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. •Only I tell you that it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on Judgement Day than for you. •And as for you, Capernaum, would you be raised as high as heaven? You shall be flung down to hell. For if the works of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained till this day.

b. Various interpretations of this violence have been suggested: 1. praiseworthy violence, the self-sacrifice of those striving for the Kingdom; 2. misguided violence of those attempting to establish an earthly kingdom; 3. tyrannical violence of the powers of evil, hampering the advance of the Kingdom. c. In this passage, and Mk 9:12, Jesus identifies the Baptist with the Elijah of Ml 3:23. John himself

does not see himself in this role, Jn 1:21. In one sense Jesus is the herald of the Day of the Lord; in another sense he brings it himself and John was the herald. d. Jesus is seen as Wisdom also 11:28–30; 12:42; Jn 6:35e; 1 Co 1:17g. e. The archetypes of wickedness duly punished, Is 23; Ezk 26–28; Am 1:9–10; Zc 9:2–4.

Is 14:13, 15

11:24 Matthew =10:15

//Lk 10:21–22

Jr 6:16

//Mk 2:23–28; //Lk 6:1–5

Ho 6:6; Mt 9:13c; 23:23 //Mk 3:1–6; //Lk 6:6–11

//Lk 14:5

Only I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on Judgement Day than for you.’

Good news revealed to the simple

At that time Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the wise and the clever and revealing them to infants. •Yes, Father, for that was your good pleasure. •Everything has been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.f •Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened,g and I will give you rest. •Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. •For my yoke is easy and my burden light.’

25 26 27

28 29 30

Picking grain on the Sabbatha

At that time Jesus went through the cornfields one Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick ears of grain and eat them. The Pharisees noticed it and said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing something that is not permitted on the Sabbath.’ •But he said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry – how he went into the house of God and they ate the loaves of the offering, although neither he nor his followers were permitted to eat them, but only the priests? •Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the Temple priests break the Sabbath without committing any fault? •Now here, I tell you, is something greater than the Temple. •And if you had understood the meaning of the words, My pleasure is in mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the blameless. •For the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath.’

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Cure of a man with a withered handb

He moved on from there and went to their synagogue; •now a man was there with a withered hand. They asked him, ‘Is it permitted to cure somebody on the Sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. •But he said to them, ‘Which of you who had only one sheep and it fell down a hole on the Sabbath, would not get hold of it and lift it out? •How much more important is a human being than a sheep? So it follows that it is permitted on the Sabbath to do good.’ •Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it

f. The claim of knowledge of and intimacy with the Father and the invitation to discipleship recall the invitations of divine Wisdom, Pr 8:22–36; Si 24:1–22; Ws 9:9–12. Here, in the synoptic tradition, then, the divinity of Jesus is stated in terms more usual in Jn, see Jn 5:19e; 8:24b. g. The burden and yoke of the Law are common rabbinic images, Si 51:26. Jesus’ Law offers a different yoke. a. By stressing the disciples’ hunger Mt presents more clearly the legal issue of whether harvesting

corn in this way was permissible on the Sabbath. In v. 5 he also offers a closer precedent for Sabbath-work than Mk, completing the legal argument in v. 6. A second argument comes in v. 7, cf. 9:13c, and a third in v. 8, cf. Mk 2:10c. b. By inserting in Mk’s account the saying of vv. 11–12, Mt gives a legal argument for Jesus’ action. In fact some casuists held that the trapped sheep could be fed on the Sabbath, but not lifted out.

9 10 11 12 13

HOME IS WHERE

The Journeys of a Missionary Child

MARGARET NEWBIGIN BEETHAM

For my Sister Alison Christine Newbigin 1941–2005 ‘Love is strong as death.’

CONTENTS PREFACE PERMISSIONS

9 12

I FIRST THINGS (2016) Dry Bones Hannah Packing

13 15 21 27

II BEGINNING AGAIN (1946–7) Where the Heart Is

39 41

III EAST IS EAST (2010/1943–4) Dust The Photo Album Mango Season

53 55 63 75

IV TRANSITIONS (2010/1946, 1951) The Invisible Thread Where Are You From? Edinburgh Again

89 91 101 111

V INTERLUDE (1951–2) Preparations

121 123

VI A GOOD EDUCATION (2010/1951–6) School Reunion

129 131

HOME IS WHERE Heavy Things Holidays A ‘Good Education’?

140 144 158

VII ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS (DECEMBER 1956–1957) ‘A cold coming we had of it’ The Children’s Home

165

VIII DAD (1909–98) God and Lot’s Wife

183 185

IX MANY WATERS (1970, 2005) Aunties Chris

199 201 212

X LAST THINGS (2005/2016) ‘… and Ashes’ The Trouble with Things An Anglo-Indian Glossary

227 229 232 239

167 176

PREFACE

y sister, Alison Christine Newbigin, died in March 2005 after a short illness. During her last few weeks we spent many hours together in the hospital and then in the hospice to which she moved and where she died. In the succeeding months I thought a good deal about the life we had shared as children, about remembering and forgetting, and what gets told and what does not. Our childhood experience was far removed from that of my own children and grandchildren. The airplane, the mobile phone and the internet have transformed the ways we keep in touch with family and friends from whom we are geographically separated, which makes the experience Ali and I shared with our younger sister, Janet, and brother, John, seem extraordinarily distant. However, there were other and more profound reasons than distance in time for why I had not thought of or spoken about those early years. Gradually, I began to confront my own ‘forgetting’, writing short pieces in which I recalled and tried to make sense of my memories. This book is the result. My given names are Margaret Rachel and writing this memoir as ‘Rachel’ and using the third person, as I do here after the opening section, may seem, at best, contrary. However, it gave me permission to make up dialogue or even invent the content of letters and emails, though I always did this in order to be faithful to my memories and to existing evidence. Ironically, I found that writing in the third person released me to be more truthful. Perhaps it broke the barriers to memory and retelling which I had built up over a lifetime. I hope, too, that using the third person will also point beyond my individual story to wider histories. Whatever the differences between my experience and that of my children, my early life shared much with that of my mother, born to missionary parents in 1907, or even to that of the two generations before hers going back to the earliest days of British missionaries being allowed to marry. Like 9

HOME IS WHERE those earlier generations, my parents were caught in the tensions between a commitment to love all equally as God’s children and their entanglement in, and resistance to, colonial practices, including those of child-rearing. Living, as I do today, in a multi-cultural city and enjoying friendships with those from many parts of the world, I am painfully aware of the often-traumatic loss of home endured by those who become migrants, refugees or asylum seekers in our post-colonial world. However, this is, of course, an account of a particular life. My parents, Lesslie and Helen Newbigin, brought their unique gifts to their lives as missionaries and to being our Dad and Mum. My father’s Presbyterian inheritance did not include the practice of calling the priest ‘Father’ but I came to understand that many people wanted him to father them in some way, either as authority figure or nurturing parent. However, through it all he was still our Dad and that is how I have tried to write of him here. It is my account, told from a particular point of view, with my insights and blindness. I have throughout used some of the words which were common in the speech of the British in India from the mid-nineteenth century onwards and have provided a brief glossary for those which may not be familiar to readers. This presents some problems of which the most acute is the familiar use of a word now so offensive that I have hesitated to write it. The uniform of the school to which I and my sisters were sent was described in all the School literature as ‘nigger-brown’. This term was used with no sense of its racist nature by generations of missionaries and their children who attended the school. I have decided to use it on its first introduction and thereafter to omit it, but I do so reluctantly since this is a history where inevitably what we can celebrate and what we must condemn are utterly entangled. My heart-felt thanks go to friends and family who supported me through the many years of this book’s gestation. I am grateful to my sister, Jan Williamson, and brother, John Newbigin, who have read and commented on the typescript, as have my daughters, Helen and Kate Beetham, and my friend, Janet Batsleer. My thanks to all of them for their continuing support and love. Thanks, also, to my friend Miriam Hirst, who read and commented on some parts of my draft, as did my old school friends, Ruth Seal (née Porritt) 10

PREFACE and Margaret Houston (nĂŠe Moore), who sadly died in 2017. The members of my Writing Group in its various manifestations, have given wonderfully perceptive and productive criticism to earlier versions; thanks to Brenda Cooper, Viv Gardner, Ursula Hurley, Judy Kendall, Myna Trustram and Janet Wolff. Thanks, too, to David Moloney at Darton, Longman and Todd. A note on names: I have changed the names of my immediate family and of my friends.

PERMISSIONS

version of the chapters ‘Dust’ and ‘Mango Season’ were originally published as one chapter in Writing Otherwise: experiments in cultural criticism edited by Jackie Stacey and Janet Wolff (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). In the chapter ‘Mango Season’ the ‘quotations’ from websites are my own pastiches of similar websites. I have, however, drawn directly and indirectly on Dane Kennedy’s The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996) and I am grateful to him for his generous permission to do so. I am grateful to the estate of Walter de la Mare for permission to quote from the poem, ‘The Listeners’ in the chapter ‘The Invisible Thread’. Thanks to the Estate of T. S. Eliot for permission to quote from his Collected Poems, 1909–1962 (London, Faber and Faber ) in the chapter A Cold Coming…

FIRST THINGS (2016)

DRY BONES

woke in the dark, hearing, through the double glazing, a blackbird singing in the street. The faint glow from the radio alarm showed the time as 6.00, but it felt like 5.00. The clocks had just gone forward. The earth tilting towards spring. I put on the bedside light which glinted off the framed photos on the bookcase by the bed. I love getting photos of my grandchildren on the phone but I still like an old-fashioned photo you can put in a frame. And of course, most of these were taken before digital was invented. There are my family on my parents’ golden wedding anniversary; my mother, bird-like in her red dress, head slightly poked forward, my father smiling but not quite at whoever was taking the photo as, of course, he was almost blind by then. We are all smiling cheesily at the camera, except for Alison who is looking down, frowning a little. She didn’t like family photos. Next to that I have put my favourite picture of her, Ali, my sister. She is sitting on her old sofa, just looking up from reading the paper, smiling, with her cat on her knee. Sparky the cat was called. I secretly called him Narky, because he always bit and scratched me, but she loved him. When she was in the hospice and very near the end her neighbour, Jeff, smuggled the cat into her room in a cardboard box. When the box was opened the cat shot under the bed and would not come out. The nurses pretended they hadn’t seen anything. At last Jeff managed to lift Sparky onto the bed where she could just touch his fur with her fingers. It was St David’s Day. I know because Ali told me. Each day counted. That morning one of the nurses had suggested a walk in the hospice garden. We had bundled her up in blankets – or rather the nurses did. I was useless, but I did find that woolly hat knitted by one of her friends, the one who kept crying and wanting Ali to make it all better for everyone else that she was dying. I told Ali it looked 15

HOME IS WHERE as if she was wearing a red and yellow tea cosy but at least it kept her head warm. The wheelchair was hard to push but we went slowly round the garden, not speaking much but looking in the slanting March sunlight. ‘Look your last on all things lovely,’ I thought but I just kept pushing and stopping to look with her. We looked at the snowdrops, the buds on the trees, the pond with its wind sculpture turning, the green spears of daffodils with the yellow hidden in them ready to burst out and trumpet the spring she would not live to see. If this was India now I might drape the photos in garlands, honour the dead with flowers, but that seems extravagant and – after all – this is not India. This is Manchester and it is nearly the end of March. I am glad. The first three months of the year are too full now of the anniversaries of the dead. My father, my mother, my sister, my forty-year marriage. I wake now on my own. But they are there smiling in their frames, my dead and living family, my long loves. This won’t do, I thought, and got up to make myself a cup of tea. ‘Who’s that?’ my friend Mary asked me the other day, peering at a rather faded photo I had hung at the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s my Mum. I think it was the year she left school.’ ‘Where’s your Dad, then?’ I realised then with something of a shock that I had not put up anywhere in the house a photo of my father on his own. The ones in my bedroom were always of him with my mother or family groups. In these he was always in mufti, never wearing a dog collar or a cassock. But, of course, like so many of my other dodges for trying to avoid the truth of the past, that strategy doesn’t work. In the wooden box carved with elephants and palm trees which I inherited from my mother, I keep her collection of photos, some in albums, mostly stuck into folders and brown envelopes where I have tried to sort them. There are very few of us in our childhood. No easy access to film then and no sense that every moment must be recorded. But there are plenty of photos of my father, almost all showing him in some official capacity: wearing a white cassock as he visits an Indian village, caught in conversation at some World Council of Churches meeting with a group of other dog collars, greeting some visiting dignitary I vaguely recognise but can’t quite put a name to. He was well-known in our world was my Dad, Lesslie Newbigin, well-known in the world of church and especially in missionary 16

DRY BONES circles. He has an after-life as a theologian, quoted in American blogs, copies of his books still sell. I am reminded of this regularly as the royalty cheques come in. I find myself now managing his literary estate. I am his ‘executor’, one of those legal words which carries a whiff of something terminal; execution, exit. I get fewer emails now from people asking me personal questions about my father, hungry for details and reminiscences. Perhaps, I thought, I should get out one of those photos of my Dad and hang it in the hall too. But I did not go to the box of photos. Instead I made myself a cup of tea and drank it, standing and looking out of the kitchen window. The sky was brightening. A white moon – almost full – hung over the rooftops and chimneys pots. The tree in next door’s garden was coming into blossom, the dark mesh of branches still showing through the opening buds. Soon it will be a white cloud suspended there. When the people who now live in that house bought it and began tidying the neglected garden, I went and asked them not to cut that tree down without talking to the neighbours. And now each spring and always taking me by surprise, the miracle of the blossom transforms my small garden, just as Cinderella was transformed in that version of the story I read as a child where it is standing under the magic tree which changes her from a kitchen skivvy into a princess. I stood now cradling my mug of tea and looking out through my reflection at my back garden and the houses beyond. The sky was losing its bruised look. The blackbird started up again, insisting that it was spring and the world was new and beautiful but in my head going round and round was that negro spiritual ‘Dem bones, dem bones dem – uh – dry bones, hear the word of the Lord’ that we used to sing with my Dad at the piano. ‘Play the bones song’, we’d say. ‘Play the bones song, please, please, Daddy.’ And he would turn the flimsy pages and sing along while he played and we children danced around, ‘And the foot bone connected to the – uh – ankle bone. And the ankle bone connected to the – uh – shin bone. Hear the word of the Lord.’ He called it ‘the compensation piano’. ‘Comp-en-say-shun.’ It was a hard word to get your tongue round as a child. ‘I bought it with the money I eventually got from the railway’, Dad would explain to some visitor (there were always visitors). ‘You know, just 17

HOME IS WHERE after I arrived in India I was involved in an accident on a bus at a level crossing. My foot was crushed. They said I would never walk again. I’m a miracle of modern medicine.’ He would laugh. ‘It was a miracle I got any money out of the railway, that’s for sure.’ He would close the piano, give us a quick kiss and stride off. My father walked more quickly than anyone else I knew and he continued to do so into old age. Even when he was eighty and almost blind he would walk briskly up the escalators in the London Underground or march out into the middle of some busy street holding out his white stick while cars braked around him, their drivers cursing and pressing their horns. My memories of childhood walks up in the hills at Kodai were of half-walking, half-running along after him, sometimes looking back to make sure Alison was still there. I always knew I had to look after her. I couldn’t remember the world without her, whereas I could remember the time before my younger sister and brother were born. Ali was close to me in age, but I was always the big sister. ‘Keep up’, I would say. ‘Keep up!’ Perhaps I have spent my life trying to keep up with my father. And why did I at some point let go of my sister’s hand, fail to turn my head to see that she was not there? The sky was brightening. ‘I’ll walk down to the river,’ I thought. I got dressed quickly, humming to myself as I put on my boots, ‘and the foot bone connected to the ...’. One advantage of living on my own – I don’t have to consult anyone else or tell them I am going for an early morning walk. In the hall, I glanced at the photo of my Mum, a young woman in a gym slip, smiling and looking ready to spring up and keep up with anyone. I let myself out of the house. In the street a few lights were coming on in upstairs rooms. The taxi driver at number 115 came out as I passed and got into his black cab. As I went into the Park I looked up at the huge ash tree which stands at the gates. Unlike the smooth grey of the younger ash which line the path beyond, this tree trunk is gnarled with age. Its branches stretch huge into the sky. Ever since I read about ash die-back I have decided to check this tree once a week for signs of die-back, though how to tell in winter I don’t know. It looks dead now but I love the great rough trunk, the way the twigs all point upward at their tips, the black buds still tight. My neighbour, who always takes his dog to 18

DRY BONES the park before work, greeted me. ‘Lovely morning!’ And it was. The Mersey runs in its deep channel on the other side of the playing fields and through the scrubby woodland of the Country Park. I used to be able to get there in twenty minutes if I walked fast. I am still my father’s daughter but now age has slowed my pace. This morning the river had sunk down from the level it was at a few days ago, leaving its detritus of branches and plastic rubbish. The Mersey here rises and falls rapidly. Before this high bank was built in the 1960s it regularly flooded all the fields around, which is why there is this belt of golf courses, playing fields, woods and rough terrain where I now love to walk. As I turned along the path above the high watermark I could see the Peak District, the source of the river, above the line of trees. The motor way roared past, invisible beyond the line of Manchester poplars on the other bank. A couple of ducks swept happily downstream. No heron today. The blackthorn hung its white blossom on bushes, here and there was green on the hawthorn twigs, but otherwise there were few signs of spring. Broken twigs and dry leaves lay on the path. Dry bones. Hard to believe this is the same river we crossed once on the ferry with Auntie May on one of our school holidays. That was more than sixty years ago. She was taking us, Ali and me, to New Brighton as a treat but the real treat was going on the ferry from Liverpool across the Mersey, which was so wide there it was almost the sea. Of course, it wasn’t the same Mersey all those years ago any more than I am the same me, but then, of course, it is and I am. I turned away from the river down some wooden steps set in the bank so that I could cut back through the wood and cross the Chorlton Brook on the little foot bridge. In summer the balsam reaches up almost to the bridge and the stream is sluggish but now the banks were scraped clean by winter floods. Much of the brook is culverted and in the past was stained by industrial waste but now it runs clear and strong. The ancient apple tree on the far bank is the outpost of what was planted many years ago as a community orchard. In the autumn passers-by still pick up the apples to take home, though they are misshapen and too bitter to eat raw. Easter is early this year and it will soon be here. Across the world in different languages churchgoers will hear that reading from Ezekiel, the story of the prophet who is taken to the valley of dry 19

HOME IS WHERE bones and told to prophesy to them. Can these bones live? And the foot bone connected to the â&#x20AC;&#x201C; uh â&#x20AC;&#x201C; ankle bone. I walked more quickly back across the playing fields seeing several other walkers now, though I was the only one without a dog. Perhaps, I thought, I will get out a photo of my father. The past is not just a bag of old bones. I felt the wind on my cheek.

HANNAH

eavy things underneath. That’s the rule.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘My Mum’s first commandment of packing,’ I said. ‘You know, helpful tips for how to get all you need for three weeks in Canada into a small case. My Mum was a brilliant packer.’ I was visiting my friend Hannah. She and I have been friends for so long that we can sit comfortably in silence for a few moments as we did now, me with my shoes off and my legs stretched out on her settee, she in the large armchair stroking the cat on her knee. Spring sunshine lit up the walls of her room with its collection of prints and family photos. I thought of my morning walk by the river, of the photos in Mum’s old box. ‘When’s your flight?’ ‘A week tomorrow,’ said Hannah. ‘Can’t quite believe it. I still can’t believe Mum won’t be there, even though it’s ages since she died.’ ‘No. I can’t believe it is so long since my Mum died.’ ‘You know,’ Hannah went on, ‘now I have grandchildren, I feel so regretful that I left Canada to live in England and deprived my Mum of the chance to see her grandson growing up as I do mine.’ ‘Yes. All those migrations. All those separations. My Mum wasn’t around for most of my growing up. She did see our kids a bit but ...’. We drank our tea for a moment or two without speaking. ‘It’s no wonder my Mum was so good at packing,’ I said. ‘I don’t think my parents brought much from the shtetl when they left Russia and once they got to Montreal they stayed all their lives,’ Hannah said. ‘Of course, my Mum’s mother came with them so she was around for all our growing up. You know she only ever spoke Yiddish. I never heard her speak English.’ ‘I get such a shock when I look in the mirror now.’

‘

HOME IS WHERE ‘Tell me about it.’ ‘No, but I am looking more and more like my Mum.’ ‘Women turn into their mothers, which is their tragedy. Who said that?’ ‘“And men don’t, which is theirs.” Oscar Wilde, my dear, the blessed Oscar. Do you remember how in our women’s group we were so determined that we would never be like our mothers?’ ‘Oh yes.’ We both laughed and were silent for a moment thinking of the group in the 1970s where we first met, the passionate discussions, the feeling that anything was possible. ‘Do you realize that was more than forty years ago?’ I said. ‘Of course, we didn’t think then that we would ever be old.’ ‘No. And look at us now.’ We laughed again and drank our coffee. ‘But, you know, our lives have been different from our mothers. Look at you. Didn’t you tell me your mother never worked after she got married?’ ‘No. She never earned her own money or drove a car or ... Her whole life was bound up with my Dad’s. Dear Mum. But …’I thought for a moment. ‘But, you know, for the first – what? –seventeen years or so – my life followed hers very closely: India, missionary parents, sent back to the very same boarding school in England …’ ‘You went to the same school as your Mum?’ ‘Yes, founded in 1838 “for the daughters of missionaries”. I don’t think much had changed there – even the colour of the uniform, which was officially “nigger brown”. ’ ‘What!’ I know. That is such an offensive word now but we all used it without any sense of its racism. But at the time …’ ‘Of course. And even then. But, why did you never tell me about all that? About school and India and … After all we have been friends for…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘I have been wondering that. Why was it so hard, so impossible, to talk about? I never let on about my parents or being brought up in India. It was like ... a shameful secret. Perhaps it was because in our circles any kind of faith was a no-no. And, perhaps it was a rebellion against, you know, the way missionaries were forever telling other people about their lives, what they were doing, sending news back home. It was part of their job.’ 22

HANNAH ‘Was it? Never met a missionary – except of course those people who come to the door sometimes.’ ‘Oh yes! All those missionary magazines and sermons and stories about good works in distant lands and – missionaries had to go on deputation when they came back home.’ ‘Deputation? Sounds painful.’ ‘Perhaps it was sometimes. It meant going round to different churches to tell them about your good works and, I suppose, make sure the money for missions kept coming in. I never thought about it as a child. It was just what Dad did when we were “home”.’ ‘Home?’ ‘Back in Britain. And Mum and Dad always did one of those awful Christmas circular letters. I hated them.’ ‘Well I suppose it was a way of keeping in touch with a lot of people. No Facebook then.’ ‘You’re right! It was a bit like Facebook. I hadn’t thought of that. A cleaned-up version of our lives – you know – all those wonderful things we’re doing …’ ‘Okay. Okay. Have a Grumpy Old Woman rant about Facebook. Didn’t you tell me your Dad published his autobiography?’ ‘Yes, he did.’ ‘What about your Mum?’ ‘No way. I wish now I had asked her more about her life. But, you know she spent her life writing letters. Because she was always living away from her family and friends, usually in a different continent, and there were no phones or email or anything, she wrote letters, must have written thousands of them. So, in one way, she was always writing her life.’ ‘But not for publication. They were private, all those letters.’ ‘That’s right. Not for publication.’ We were silent again for a moment. ‘You know when I was six or so I wanted to be called Rachel,’ I said at last, ‘Why Rachel?’ ‘It’s my second name and I – don’t know – perhaps I liked it more than Margaret. Every now and then I tried to make everyone call me Rachel, but it didn’t work and, of course, at school I became ‘Margaret’. You know if/when I write the story of my childhood I 23

HOME IS WHERE will write it as ‘Rachel’, that little girl who is me and not me.’ ‘Good Jewish name, Rachel.’ ‘Of course. Mum and Dad knew their Bible! But Mum told me I was called after her Irish aunties.’ ‘Irish?’ ‘Yes, that’s another part of the story. My Mum’s family were Irish. I thought you knew.’ ‘No. I didn’t. So how come your Mum was brought up in India and then went to school in England?’ ‘I will tell you the whole tale sometime, but I must go.’ I sat up and began to put on my shoes. ‘Do you remember, Hannah, when we were talking a year or so after my Mum died and you suggested that I write a letter to her?’ ‘I wrote a letter to my Dad a few years after he died. There was so much I wanted to say to him.’ We were silent again for a moment. ‘I am glad you came from Canada or I wouldn’t have known you,’ I said at last. ‘But it is great that you are going back for this visit.’ ‘Do you think you will go back to India again sometime?’ ‘Don’t think so. I don’t know. I must get going. Wish you still lived in Manchester.’ ‘Well it’s only twenty miles or something.’ ‘Yes, but ...’ I looked around again at the familiar room. ‘Hannah, you are the only person I know who can get away with painting your walls pink. Are you trying to reclaim the dreaded P word?’ ‘Well, it is not exactly pink. But it does work, doesn’t it? I think I get my colour sense from my father. You know eventually he became a buyer for the textile company he worked for. When he wasn’t working for the overthrow of capitalism, he was obviously very good at his job.’ She pushed the cat off her knee and stood up. ‘You know, it’s no wonder we get on so well. Me with my communist parents, you with your Christian missionaries. We were both brought up to think that the world could be saved and we had to do it.’ ‘I gave up on that one a while ago,’ I said. ‘Have you?’ She was sceptical. ‘My sister, Ali, you know, she had a postcard stuck up on one of her kitchen cupboards. It said You don’t have to save the world. That’s my job, love God.’ 24

HANNAH ‘Hmm,’ said Hannah as I gave her a hug. ‘Let’s not go there now.’ As I drove back into Manchester I thought about those years in India, the time in boarding school; my memories of them were vivid but broken, islands sticking up above the sea of forgetting. Sometimes it felt as if I had been a different person then. Rachel, perhaps. I still have the Bible Dad gave me with both my names written in the front in his spidery writing, ‘Margaret Rachel Newbigin’, and a reference to Psalm 121, verse 8, ‘The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth for evermore’. Going out and coming in, they did a lot of that, Mum and Dad. Perhaps I could write a letter to Mum but what was it I wanted to say? ‘Dear Mum, you have been dead for so long but I have been thinking about you recently’? Or ‘Dear Mum, Sorry I was so bad at saying “thank you” or “I do love you”.’ Really, it’s not my kind of thing. It was more an Ali thing, writing letters to the dead. Hadn’t she done something like that when we scattered Mum and Dad’s ashes? She’d written on a piece of paper which she had torn up and scattered on the moor along with the grey powdery ash. It all went into the heather and grey, grey stones. Being Ali, she hadn’t explained. I can’t do that, I thought. I really can’t. Bad enough turning into your mother. Much worse to turn into your younger sister. ‘Oh, Ali!’ My heart turned over, as it does so often now when I think of her, my sister, the one closest to me, the one who always pushed me away. ‘Of course, we are alike because we are elder sisters,’ Hannah had said to me once. ‘We had to look after the younger ones.’ ‘Sisterhood is powerful’ was our slogan back in in the days of the Women’s Movement, but we didn’t mean our biological sisters. We meant other women whose connections with us were not so tangled with our memories, our pre-memories. Even then, ‘sisterhood’ was as likely to lead to conflict as to comfort and support. I thought that when I got home I would go and look at the old music I had stashed on top of the piano or put away in a drawer, music I had bought, and some I got from Dad and Granny. Most of it had disappeared, of course, but I still had a few pieces: a muchthumbed hymn book, Dad’s loose copies of Schubert Lieder which had been bound in the cheap, coloured cardboard they used in the bazaar, some old English folk songs, a battered copy of the book of 25

HOME IS WHERE negro spirituals which we had sung along with him, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’, and that one about dry bones. I thought about my morning walk, the tune that went round in my head, ‘dem bones, dem bones’ and the way we danced round the piano while Dad played. Where was Mum then? I couldn’t see her. She didn’t sing or play the piano. Like the view in the car mirror (a bend in the road, the headlights of following traffic), it was just snatches of the past that were visible from where I was, driving a little too fast perhaps, towards home.

PACKING

hen I was seven, going on eight, my mother started teaching me how to pack. ‘Margaret Rachel’, she called me, using my full name to show the importance of the occasion. ‘Now that you’re such a big girl you’ll soon be going into boarding up in Kodai. You’ll have to pack your things up when you come back home from school for the cool season. First you must put in the books and heavy things,’ Mum said. ‘Where are your books?’ We were getting ready for the annual migration from the plains to the hills. Every year as long as I could remember, when the hot season came, Mum brought out the trunks and began sorting the clothes. This year I wasn’t playing with my sisters, Alison and Janet, or keeping an eye on the baby. I was going to ‘do the packing’. ‘See,’ my mother said. ‘The books go flat in the bottom of the trunk. Then awkward-shaped things like shoes. Wrap them in newspapers and fit them in carefully. You can stuff little things that don’t crease, like knickers and vests, into the corners to make a flat surface. See how I am doing it?’ ‘Yes, Mummy.’ ‘Then you fold your clothes neatly so, to fit on top. You can fold skirts into newspaper to stop them creasing. You don’t need tissue paper.’ ‘What’s tissue paper?’ I remembered dimly hearing a passage read in church, something about being ‘clothed in fine raiment and gold tissue’. ‘Oh, it’s a kind of thin paper.’ ‘Is it sparkly?’ ‘Sparkly? No, it’s white. We could get it at home before the war.’ ‘Before the War’, ‘Home’, words which pointed always to distant times and places. When my parents spoke of ‘Home’ it 27

HOME IS WHERE was always somewhere else. And so perhaps it was for her. Born in Borsad in Gujarat, India, she had difficulties throughout her life in proving her age and where she came from. She had no birth certificate. Her Certificate of Baptism, written in Gujarati, got more and more fragile as it was taken in and out of envelopes and fingered by officials. When she was in her seventies she wrote me a letter, meticulously dated, as her letters always were, but she had put the year as 1907. ‘I must have been doing one of those forms about my date of birth, so I had 1907 in my head,’ she said when I teased her about it gently. I can see her now, standing by the great wooden cliff of the almyra, taking clothes from the shelves and looking them over for moth and signs of white ants. ‘You can’t keep anything in this climate,’ she would sigh, just as she did when she was checking the levels of water in the saucers in which stood the legs of the meat safe. No fridges, then. All perishable food was kept in the wire-cage of the meat-safe. Ants could not cross water, though they could swarm over everything else. The little red ones could raise a huge lump on your arm or ankle, but they were nothing compared to the black ants, which marched in columns, huge creatures bigger than my thumb, with fearsome pincers. The cool weather things we would need for Kodai were laid out on the floor ready to be packed; the cardigans, the vests, the walking shoes. It was hard to imagine that you might ever need a cardigan. The fan moved the warm air round Mum and Dad’s bedroom. Theirs was the one room in the house with an electric fan but they never slept there, preferring the veranda where some cool air might flow in towards dawn. ‘Good. That’s the cabin trunk done.’ She closed the lid of the brown trunk with its hoops of bent wood. ‘Now you can help with the tin-liner.’ The great trunk in the corner still carried labels saying ‘Southampton’, ‘Tilbury’ and ‘Bombay’, relics of that larger migration back Home which took place every five years. Mum opened the heavy lid. The trunk was big enough for a seven-year old to hide in if you clambered over the side and crouched down. ‘But you must never go in it because, if the lid came down, you would be suffocated and die.’ I was, on the whole, an obedient child but when my mother 28

PACKING turned the key in the brass lock and opened the heavy lid, I leaned into the trunk as far as I could, feeling the smoothness of the grey metal lining, sniffing the inviting smell of moth balls and wool. Here were the blankets and Daddy’s dark suit. He never wore the suit in India. On the plains he wore white cassocks and, up in the hills, on holiday in Kodai, khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirts, the shirts laid out now ready to be packed. Now I think of it, I do remember one occasion when he had worn the suit. It was a year earlier when we had been Home on furlough for a year. We were living in that cold, cold missionary house in Edinburgh and Dad had to go to a ‘posh do’ in connection with the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. All the ‘high heidyins’ would be there, he said. Mum had opened up the tin-liner and drawn out the suit. As she shook it out of the folded newspaper, there were grey flutterings. ‘Oh, look the moth has got in. Oh, dear! Try it on. Let’s see.’ It fitted him still. He had kept his boyish figure but there were flashes of white leg through tiny holes in the trousers. ‘You can’t go like that! You can’t go!’ They looked at each other in dismay while we children stood round. ‘I know,’’ he said. ‘Have you got any of that black marking ink, that you used to mark clothes for the dhobi.’ ‘Somewhere.’ ‘If I put the trousers on, you can put black ink on the leg behind and then it won’t show through.’ And so he had stood, rotating slowly, while she knelt down and dabbed his leg through the trousers, making sure the ink stain spread widely enough that no white skin showed. ‘Now I can go to the ball’, he had said, laughing. In Edinburgh people wore dark clothes and there were never enough blankets to keep you warm at night. Those heavy blankets! I can remember still the weight of them as you curled tight, trying to keep your feet away from the icy depths of the beds. They were white wool, with scratchy blue stitching round the edge which Mum told me was blanket stitch. It was almost the only stitch I was able to do in needlework lessons. But, of course, that was later at school. They thread together these memories. 29

HOME IS WHERE Edinburgh was where my parents had met. It was a special place for them. I had always known this but it took years for me to piece together something of that story, the story of how I came to be, of how I find myself now in my old age with a large tin-lined trunk in my bedroom, a trunk covered still in old labels, and faintly visible on the top the words Mum had stencilled on it in white paint before I was born, NOT WANTED ON VOYAGE. I knew that my mother was a few years older than my father when they met. In those far off days she had been in a more senior post in the Student Christian Movement than he had. Indeed she had been on the appointing committee when he got a job as SCM secretary, responsible for the University of Glasgow while she had charge of the work in Edinburgh. In later years certain acronyms circulated like magic formula through their conversation, cryptic references which I gradually decoded. S.C.M., C.M.S., C.S.I. (though I knew that stood for Church of South India) and – most mysterious of all – one, two, one, George Street – the offices of the mighty Church of Scotland. ‘As soon as I saw her on that appointing committee, I said to myself, she’s the one for me’, Dad would say in later years. But she was more cautious. She was a graduate of Edinburgh University, a rare creature, rattling over the cobbles on her bicycle with her two close women friends. The men called them ‘the three graces’. And she was already a seasoned traveller, an expert packer. After all she had been seven when she went to the boarding school in Kent ‘for the daughters of missionaries’ while her parents sailed back to India. She did not see them for five years but six times a year through all those years she packed her little school suitcase and travelled with her big sisters between Kent and south-west Ireland where her mother’s family lived. I wish now I had asked her more about it. She was the baby, the youngest of the five children who survived and her older sisters had been even younger when they were left behind by their missionary parents. Did their mother, the Granny I never knew, hug little Helen tight as she said goodbye to her? Did she walk away down the road crying, as my Mum, that same little girl grown up, did years later when she said goodbye to me and my sister at the same school gate? I don’t know. I do know that Mum always insisted that she had a very 30

An advent study with the classic movie

A Christmas Carol (Scrooge)

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 1 Spencer Court 140â&#x20AC;&#x201C;142 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4JJ ÂŠ 2019 Sheila Jacobs The right of Sheila Jacobs to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN 978-0-232-53410-8 All Bible quotes taken from the NIV 2011 UK unless otherwise indicated. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Timings given for film clips are approximate Designed and produced by Judy Linard Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER ONE 17

THE CHAINS OF LIFE

CHAPTER TWO 35

IN THE PAST

CHAPTER THREE 57

LIVING NOW

CHAPTER FOUR 75

FUTURE â&#x20AC;¦ PERFECT?

CONCLUSION 101 IDEAS FOR GROUPS 107 5

INTRODUCTION The shops are full of tinsel, Santas, gingerbread lattes, fake fir trees and every kind of new toy. Christmas cards are on sale, promising pretty winterlands with quaint, snow-covered cottages nestling around picturesque churches, and robins perched on frosty branches. Ah, it must be … September! Oops! Does that sound cynical? I’m not sure when ‘humbug’ crept into my Christmas experience, but it did. When I was a child, Christmas was a special time. I loved travelling to visit my grandparents, who lived some distance from us. They always had an impressive display of cards strung on ribbons decorating the living room, a large, real tree in the corner and underneath, the most interesting bit: presents, and some of them with my name on the tag. So Christmas was a time of grandparents, extended family, playing with my cousins, watching TV together and having a lovely dinner. 7

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS The run-up to the day itself was never uneventful. I was usually chosen to be the narrator in school nativity plays. I remember kids dressed as angels with cardboard and tinsel halos, and the happiness of glitter and glue and cotton wool as we attempted to make our own Christmas cards. Oh, and then there was the carol service. I think I started to feel a creeping sense of ‘humbug’ when, over a period of several years, three people I cared about passed away around Christmastime. Or maybe I just got jaded! Did you notice that Jesus didn’t really enter my childhood Christmas thinking? I probably thought about the baby in the manger during the carols and nativity play, but ‘Advent’was just a word for a certain type of calendar. I only remember going to church twice when I was around ten, then being obliged to go with the school when I was older, and three forays into church-land when I was a teen. My Sunday school was, in effect, my granny, who told me stories about Jesus when I stayed with her during the summer holidays. I believed in him from an early age and would even have considered myself ‘a Christian’, having had an encounter with him when I was around fourteen, but I didn’t understand what it truly meant to follow him – although by my late teens I had an idea that I wasn’t living as I should. 8

INTRODUCTION So, Christmas for me wasn’t about Jesus. Strangely, I became even more entrenched in humbug when I surrendered my life to him at the age of twenty-five and finally understood that he really was the ‘reason for the season’. At that point it seemed to me that Christmas was more of a pagan festival than anything to do with the coming of the Son of God, as man – God’s amazing rescue mission. The commercialisation of the season was so evident to my newly opened eyes: the manipulative advertising, the clamouring for more ‘stuff ’ to ensure our ‘perfect’ day, the frantic last-minute shopping, the angst over the right-size turkey, the fluffiest potatoes! Then the inevitable comedown for so many, when the bills arrived … I’m beginning to sound like Scrooge! What a character – one of the greatest in all fiction, in my opinion; full of humbug until some supernatural encounters change his way of thinking, not only impacting his own life, but changing that of others, and bringing great happiness to all. The Christmas season may be one you enjoy. Perhaps for you, the happiness far outweighs the humbug; you’re not Scrooge-like in any way! Or maybe, like many others, you find Christmas difficult; perhaps the hardest time of the year. My own approach to Christmas is slowly changing. These days I try not to let cynicism 9

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS ruin the celebration – although I still don’t like the commercialisation – but neither do I focus on the comforting familiarity of nativities and carols, a half-remembered romanticism left over from childhood. For me, Christmas isn’t even about the excitement of presents (well … I do like presents), it’s about Jesus – seeking his presence among the celebrations. Because as I continue my walk with him, I realise that I have to constantly look for him among all the ‘stuff ’ of life that threatens to crowd him out; especially, perhaps, during the craziness of December, when I really do need to rediscover, amid the stress and the hurry and the twinkling fairy lights, the true Light of the world, and remember how thankful I am for his first coming, as I await his second Advent. It’s easy to get distracted, especially at this time of the year, so it’s good to be able to set aside time to be with Jesus, to refocus. What better way than to enjoy a great Christmas movie, and to use this to encourage us to consider what Advent is really all about. There have been many adaptations of Charles Dickens’ famous novel of 1843, but the one we are looking at here, with the delightful Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, is a classic. If you are familiar with Dickens’ work, this may inspire you to read the original story again (or for the 10

INTRODUCTION first time, if Dickens hasn’t been ‘your thing’). The 1951 film version of the famous tale is so well known, you have probably seen it before – maybe countless times. But as you watch it again, look out for what God may be saying to you through this Christmas treat. Released as A Christmas Carol in the United States, it introduces us to the miserly misery and his world. Dickens, of course, wrote his books in such a way as to highlight the social issues of his day, and this film speaks great truth to us even now. The importance of generosity of spirit rather than selfish living; forgiveness; restoration – there are so many themes here, many of which I hope we can address. As well as Sim, glance at the cast list and see how many popular British actors you recognise from yesteryear: Michael Hordern, George Cole, Patrick Macnee, Hermione Baddeley, Jack Warner, Hattie Jacques. And, of course, we are introduced to some great fictional creations, including the Cratchit family, with Scrooge’s long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit (Mervyn Johns), and Cratchit’s lame, sick son, the unforgettable Tiny Tim, played here by Glyn Dearman. The way the film is constructed is interesting. There’s quite a spooky start, ominous in its bleakness, leading into the supernatural 11

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS encounters. Scrooge is almost a caricature; we can be in no doubt of his hard-hearted personality; he has no compassion for the poor. But it’s only as the curtain is drawn back and we find out what made him this way that we begin to truly understand him. He becomes more ‘real’ and eventually, quite lovable. Alistair Sim plays the part with suitable tragedy and comedy. In this story, we see plainly that selfishness, idolising wealth and withdrawing into his own very small world has led to alienation, and a deathly loneliness. There is no lasting contentment and fulfilment to be found in Scrooge’s cold existence. The film suggests that generosity, love and forgiveness are the traits we should nurture. Indeed, they are what make us human. This is a story about ‘ghosts’ – the spirit of Jacob Marley visits his old business partner. He is a spirit in torment, due to the poor way he has lived, condemned to wander the earth. He has come to warn Scrooge that he needs to repent to avoid the same fate, and tells him that three other spirits will visit him. These are the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Spirit of Christmas Present and the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come. The spirits duly arrive, and the past, present and future are laid out before the rather bewildered and ultimately penitent Ebenezer. Obviously, there are huge theological 12

INTRODUCTION differences between what is shown in the film and what the Bible teaches. Spiritualism – the occult, séances, mediumship – was very popular in Dickens’ Victorian Britain. But spiritualism – attempting to contact the dead – has been practised for far longer than that. As far back as the Old Testament, Saul, Israel’s first king, sought out a medium and apparently encountered the spirit of Samuel the prophet as a result (1 Samuel 28). Saul had actually banished mediums from the land, obeying the Lord’s commands in Leviticus 19:31, Leviticus 20:6, 27 and Deuteronomy 18:10-12. Whether or not Saul really met a ‘ghost’, we cannot tell, but it is plain from Scripture that God, who loves us, does not want his people to try to contact the dead; this is not his will for us. There can be no doubt that there is a spiritual, unseen world; the Bible speaks of angels who worship and serve God – but it also speaks of an enemy: demons, a satanic kingdom that opposes God and his people. Opening a door to the enemy in disobedience to God’s will is therefore not a good idea. It seems that Saul’s attempt to contact Samuel was an act born out of desperation. But the Word of God advocates that rather than trying to contact the dead or any other spiritual ‘being’ when we need assurance, comfort or 13

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS guidance, we should go to God himself, through Jesus Christ. Under the old covenant, this was impossible, except for a chosen few; a study of the role of the high priest and the tabernacle and Temple in the Old Testament and the entrance into God’s holy presence is well worth it, if you have the time (after Christmas!), because it shows us just how much Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. He came to set us free from the old ways of sacrifice for sins that separate us from our holy God, becoming sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Temple curtain, dividing the holiest place from the rest, was torn in two when Jesus died, signifying that we have access through his blood into God’s presence (Matthew 27:51). So, for the purposes of our Advent study, we must see past (or through!) the ‘ghosts’ to a greater truth. We observe that Jacob Marley is reaping what he sowed while he was alive (Galatians 6:7-10). The principle is quite clear: repent – turn from this old way of living. Live new. But of course, we do that as we come to Jesus, have our uncleanness washed away, and enter into the life-giving presence of a Father who loves us. We don’t earn salvation by ‘being good’; as Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us: ‘For it is by grace [God’s free, unearned favour] you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the 14

INTRODUCTION gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.’ Good deeds may (and should) flow from a heart changed by God, the fruit of a whole new life, but it’s only by accepting Christ’s sacrifice that we can be made right with God. This book has been written for personal use, but you may wish to look at it with a group – there are suggestions for how to do this at the back. It isn’t a ‘course’, and you don’t have to read the chapters as four Advent ‘weeks’. Read it in the way that suits you best during this busy period. There are places to pause for thought, to think about themes, and Advent connections. I have suggested clips to illustrate points; you don’t have to watch them, but you may find it beneficial to play a clip and read the ‘think about’ comment. (Please note that all timings given are approximate.) At the end of the chapters you will find ideas for activities, reflection and prayer. It might be a good idea to use the book as part of your quiet time, if you have one. Before you start, I suggest you watch the film all the way through. It’s available on DVD – I expect you know someone who has a copy! Grab some of your favourite snacks, and enjoy. This tale of humbug and happiness is about reviewing the past, and will help us to think about how our present choices are impacting the future. Jesus came – a long-anticipated Messiah, 15

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS rejected by many â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is here in our present, and will come again. My prayer for you as you watch this wonderful movie and read this book is that you, like me, will let this thought-provoking story challenge your attitudes and actions; and that this Advent season, you will have a lifechanging encounter with the living God. Sheila Jacobs Halstead, Essex

CHAPTER ONE

THE CHAINS OF LIFE PREPARE YOURSELF

Do you enjoy Christmas? What do you like about it, especially? If not, what do you dislike, and why?

TO START

‘He doesn’t trust anyone!’ ‘She’s so reserved!’ ‘What on earth did I say that made him react like that?’ It’s easy to judge people, especially if we don’t really know them! But if we knew their backstory, we might find it explained a great deal about their sometimes puzzling behaviour – and our own! For example, imagine someone has had a teacher/parent/carer who seemed to blame them for everything. Years later, perceived criticism from anyone else may incite an over-the-top response. In effect, that person is responding to today’s situations based on something they have experienced in the past. 17

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS That person you find difficult to get on with (or maybe you are the difficult one!) – did they (or we) start out that way? What changed them (or us)? As we begin to get to know Ebenezer Scrooge, we will soon find out that there’s a backstory to his miserliness and locked-in coldness. Everyone has a backstory … sometimes it’s worth remembering that before we jump to conclusions. PAUSE FOR THOUGHT Do you know anyone who seems a bit ‘prickly’ in their attitude? Why not pray for them?

WATCH: 1:58-3:22

As we begin the adventure into Ebenezer Scrooge’s journey of self-revelation, we can see right from the start that he is a miserable man with apparently no conscience. Scrooge manifestly sees Christmas as a total inconvenience. It stops him from doing his business. It’s all humbug. A man owes him £20 and begs for more time to pay, but Scrooge treats him with unfeeling cruelty. If you watched the film’s intro before the clip, 18

THE CHAINS OF LIFE you might have had a feeling of menace from quite an ominous version of Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.

THINK ABOUT

Does this remind you of the parable Jesus told in Luke 12:13-21 about the rich fool? He gathered together all his wealth, but his life would soon be over. Then who would benefit from his hoarded goods? Jesus has already warned his listeners about being on their guard against greed, for ‘life does not consist in an abundance of possessions’. That, as we will see, is actually the story of Scrooge. It’s great to have a home, a car, material possessions, and it’s wonderful to be able to help others out of our blessings, but how easy it is to begin to put ‘stuff ’ in the place of God in our hearts. It’s possible to start off with good intentions, determined to keep a balance, but if we’re not careful, life can all too soon become all about money. Things. Possessions. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do, I tend to ‘mute’ the adverts. Do we believe possessing that new car/furniture is totally necessary to our well-being? Have we bought into a materialistic lie that we can’t be happy without the latest … (fill in the blank)? 19

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS PAUSE FOR THOUGHT Reality check! How far do you believe that owning ‘things’ makes you happy?

WATCH: 3:40-5:34

In this clip we see two men visiting with Scrooge. His partner, Jacob Marley, has been dead for seven years. They have apparently come for a donation from Scrooge towards the poor and destitute at Christmas. These kind-hearted altruists see a bigger picture than Ebenezer does. His rebuke, ‘Are there no prisons? … And the union workhouses, are they still in operation?’ is chilling. The men want to offer help to the poor during the richness of the season. Scrooge’s reply is that he supports establishments that he has mentioned – and he refuses to help. When his visitors suggest that some would rather die than go to these establishments, he remarks that they should do so and ‘decrease the surplus population’. His words will come back to haunt him, quite literally. He is constantly occupied with his own world. He does not look outwards with any pity. This is such an interesting piece – and sets the scene for what will happen later. We are, right at the outset, in no doubt of Scrooge’s nature. 20

THE CHAINS OF LIFE THINK ABOUT

This period in Britain’s history was a time of great turbulence. I remember studying Economic History at school and learning how the Industrial Revolution of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries meant that life was radically changing as people shifted from the countryside into the towns, and industry began to change the face of the nation. I recall talking with an elderly friend years ago about workhouses – still remembered and greatly feared. My granny, born in 1906, the daughter of Victorian parents, often told me of her Christmas presents – fruit, nuts and one year a doll with a wax face … which melted by the fire. Today, I wonder what we imagine when we think of ‘poverty’. Someone in the Third World, who cannot get access to clean water? People sleeping on the streets in cold weather? Or do we think someone is ‘poor’ because they don’t have a smartphone? It’s true, too, that Christmas is a time when those who are in any kind of ‘want’ may feel it most. Not just financially, but in other ways too. For instance, those who have no family, or have suffered loss – the empty place at the table. At a time when the media in particular seems to enforce the picture of the ideal Christmas, complete with family, friends, soft glowing lights and tables overflowing with good things, those 21

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS without resources or loved ones can certainly feel the full force of any lack. Christmas seems to exacerbate the emptiness. PAUSE FOR THOUGHT Is there anyone you know who you consider ‘poor’ in some way? How can you help them/pray for them this Christmas?

WATCH: 5:37-6:37

Now we are introduced to the delightful Fred, Ebenezer’s nephew. He is full of joy and wishes his uncle merry Christmas. Scrooge remarks that keeping Christmas has never done his nephew any good – by now, we are understanding that his benchmark for ‘good’ is ‘wealthy’. Fred has apparently married against his uncle’s wishes, for love, and his wife is poor. Fred is happy, though! Despite his uncle’s churlishness he responds with kindness. He invites Scrooge to Christmas dinner. But it’s all humbug to Scrooge!

THINK ABOUT

I like how Scrooge’s nephew refuses to let his uncle dampen his spirits. He still holds out an olive branch, even though he is being rejected. I wonder how many of us would have walked 22

THE CHAINS OF LIFE away from such an unpleasant man. When we are hurt we can easily respond ‘in kind’: you rejected me, I will reject you. Of course, Jesus doesn’t act in that way. He was abandoned by his disciples when he was arrested, but after the crucifixion and resurrection, what happened? Did he appear merely to tell them he wanted nothing more to do with them? No. In John 21 we don’t see him pointing the finger at his disciples, we see him cooking them breakfast! And he gently reinstates the one who denied him three times. It could be that there are times you would like to walk away from God – and from other people. Jesus knows what it’s like to be rejected but he doesn’t give up on us. He says he will never leave or forsake us (Isaiah 53:3; Hebrews 13:5). We will look further at this whole theme of rejection in the next chapter. PAUSE FOR THOUGHT Have you walked away from God? Or from someone else? Why?

WATCH: 7:05-10:20; 10:29-50

Here we are introduced to Tim, the lame little son of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s clerk. Tim is 23

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS looking through a toy shop window with some delight. There’s a moment of poignancy when someone buys a boat, and Tim looks longingly on – his family clearly can’t afford to buy him these toys. But Tim’s cheery demeanour quickly returns. This scene is a good contrast for what follows: Scrooge’s attitude to having to give Cratchit Christmas Day off – and still having to pay him a day’s wages! But for all his poverty and his employer’s harsh treatment, Bob Cratchit is as sunny-natured as his son. As for Scrooge, he isn’t even kind to himself: in the second clip, in the inn, we see he wants more bread, but when he finds out it costs a little extra, won’t buy it.

THINK ABOUT

I shared earlier about my ‘jaded’ feelings around Christmas. But what about you? Do you feel a spark of excitement about the season – and about life? Or has disappointment, disillusionment, robbed you of your joy … or even your faith? Remember back to the dreams of childhood. Which of those dreams have been fulfilled? Which might yet be? What are your hopes for the coming year? Did God give you his vision for your life, at the start of your Christian walk? Do you need to ask him about this now? When Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God, 24

THE CHAINS OF LIFE he said we should have a child-like (not childish) attitude – one of trust (Matthew 18:1-3). Perhaps your trust in God has been damaged in some way. Is it time to ask him to renew in you a child-like faith in a heavenly Father who loves you? PAUSE FOR THOUGHT In what way can you be especially kind to yourself this Christmastime?

WATCH: 11:03-20:37

Scrooge begins to encounter the supernatural at this point. Going home, his door knocker takes the appearance of Jacob Marley’s face. Scrooge is still in ‘humbug’ mode even when his name is eerily spoken and it becomes apparent that there are ghostly goings-on! Ever the cynic … sitting alone, eating gruel … Then the door flies open, and here is the first supernatural visit. Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner, is wearing a great chain. Jacob points out that Scrooge doesn’t believe in him. Scrooge gives an answer that always makes me smile: that what he is experiencing is probably down to indigestion! Scared into believing what he’s encountering, 25

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS ‘worldly’ Scrooge listens to his partner and asks him why he’s there. Jacob talks about the chain, which he made himself while he was alive, and how Scrooge is forging a much bigger one! He tells Scrooge about how he is condemned to walk the earth after death. What he is saying is that because he didn’t share in the lives of others when he lived, he is condemned to watch from afar now he is dead, regretting, in torment, with no peace or rest that he can never be part of the happiness he might have had if he had lived differently – for others; and it’s too late to change anything. Of course, Jacob has come to warn Scrooge that he has a chance to escape Marley’s fate. Three spirits will visit him …

THINK ABOUT

The idea of forging a chain we carry into death is quite sobering. Hebrews 9:27 tells us: ‘people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment’ which doesn’t appear to teach that unrepentant spirits roam the earth in torment (and also gives no leeway to any thought of reincarnation). There is going to be a day of reckoning. Jesus took the penalty for our wrongdoing – the chains we have made for ourselves, if you like – on himself on the cross. Jesus said, famously, in John 3:16-17: ‘For God 26

THE CHAINS OF LIFE so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’ Unlike Marley, we needn’t have to pay the price for our own sin. Jesus has done that for us. Thank God! There is no condemnation when we come to Christ (Romans 8:1). Our sins are judged and condemned in Jesus. He promises in John 6:37 that he will never turn away anybody who comes to him. We might regret many aspects of our past, but we can surrender this to Jesus, knowing he will forgive, accept and restore us. We don’t need to be bound like Jacob Marley, because Jesus sets us free ( John 8:36; Galatians 5:1). We may feel as if we are bound by chains that someone else has placed around us. If that’s the case, it could be time to examine the nature of these chains and, with God, explore the whole area of what it truly means to live in the freedom offered by Jesus. I don’t believe God scares us into believing in him, as Marley’s ghost does with Scrooge; rather, he invites us into relationship. In the story of the woman at the well in John’s Gospel, Jesus knew everything about her dysfunctional background, but far from condemning her, he came alongside and offered her something better; eternal life, the ‘living water’ of the Spirit of God ( John 4:10,13-14). 27

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS Jacob Marley is not in hell, but he seems to represent a separation from God in regret and torment that seems pretty hellish to me. This scene really is thought-provoking – but not without hope. At least, not for Scrooge. It may also motivate us to tell others about Jesus. Eternal separation from God, or the new life and relationship with the Lord that is ours when we come to him? The invitation is there. Let’s make sure others know about it. PAUSE FOR THOUGHT Imagine Jesus, on the cross, wrapped around with chains we have forged on earth. Because he wore them, we don’t have to. Stay as long as you can in that place of surrender and gratitude.

ADVENT CONNECTION Read: Luke 1:26-38 … The angel went to [Mary] and said, ‘Greetings,

you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ Mary was greatly troubled at his words … But 28

THE CHAINS OF LIFE the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants for ever; his kingdom will never end ...’

Mary wasn’t visited by a ghost. Neither was her supernatural visitor someone who made her fearful – rather, he urged her not to be afraid. Still, as with Scrooge’s encounter, the point of the conversation was salvation. In verse 46 of Luke 1, Mary rejoices in God, her ‘Saviour’ – but this wasn’t just about her own life; it was about the world. Luke 53:6 tells us ‘We all, like sheep, have gone astray’ but that God has laid our iniquity, that which would separate us from him, on the One who would come to save us. Yes, God had a plan. He sent an angel to talk to Mary and invite her to be a big part of it. Imagine what it must have been like for a teenage girl, betrothed to Joseph, to have a supernatural interruption into her presumably quiet world. True, supernatural events had already happened in her family. Her relative, Elizabeth, was miraculously pregnant; her son, John, would have his own part to play in the 29

HUMBUG AND HAPPINESS events to come, as the prophesied herald of the coming Messiah. And now, Mary was going to have a baby. He would be God’s own Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit. In light of the fact that she would face huge consequences in her time and culture for becoming pregnant outside of marriage, her answer is astonishing: ‘I am the Lord’s servant … May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Total surrender to God – trusting him to make everything work out. I feel God often challenges me through ‘pictures’. I like looking at water from the shore, but I am no sailor! Yet, this was an idea that slipped into my mind recently. If I was offered a place in a small boat that looked pretty leaky and unsafe, but Jesus was in that boat, would I choose to step aboard? Or stay on the apparent safety of the shore? Mary really did step out. She took a huge risk. But then, a perplexed Joseph, after some initial and understandable doubt, was encouraged in the truth by more supernatural intervention (Matthew 1:18-24). Does God intervene in our lives today? Does he still heal, set free and deliver people from the oppression of darkness? I believe he does; he doesn’t change. We may see the kingdom of God breaking into lives in all sorts of ways. 30

Joseph and the

Three Gifts

An Angelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Story

BRIAN SIBLEY Decorations by Henry Martin

First published in 2019 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 1 Spencer Court 140–142 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4JJ Text © 2019 Brian Sibley Illustrations © 2019 Henry Martin The right of Brian Sibley to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN 978-0-232-53416-0 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Designed and produced by Judy Linard Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow

Contents 1 Annunciations 2 Nativity

3 Epiphany

4 The First Gift

5 The Second Gift 6 The Third Gift

Afterword

47 65 91 107

Joseph and the

Three Gifts

Annunciations

o, you want to know about Joseph? And why wouldn’t you? Anyone who’s heard the story knows the name; he’s there in every nativity play and present near the manger in every Christmas crib, while pictures of him and his family drop daily through your letter box every December. 11

Joseph and the Three Gifts But whilst heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to be found somewhere in thousands of artworks by centuries of painters, he is (as often as not) relegated to the background, shown half in shadow, depicted looking awestruck, or simply puzzled and patient. Or, sometimes, with an expression that is impossible to read: not so much inscrutable as undefined, as though the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interests and attentions lay elsewhere, occupied with the far greater burden of depicting the Mother and Child. Joseph might be shown returning to the stable with a bundle of new-cut firewood or, perhaps, holding up a lantern for the benefit of visiting dignitaries and farm-workers. True he does feature in a couple of ancient carols, but he has never had the prominence of kings, shepherds and, I might add, angels. Portrayed, more often than not, as an old, white-haired man leaning on a staff; he is the perfect cipher for trust and reliability, a symbolic illustration of faithfulness and stoicism. That, then, is Joseph: the supporting player in a monumental drama that has been so often 12

Annunciations told that the enormity of its possibilities has been reduced to the familiar – even to the commonplace. The Church, of course, made him a Saint – hence those glowing dinner-plate halos which he sports in many representations. There is also, it appears, a field of theological study that goes by the name of Josephology. But, for most people he is simply a character who lives in the margin of the Christmas story. But, if you want to know about Joseph, I can certainly tell you. Why me? Well, I’ll come to that, soon enough. Having criticised several generations of artists, I should probably start by telling you what he looks like, but then I’m no judge of men’s outer appearances – something that will require another explanation anon. But whether Joseph is plain-featured or once-handsome-and-now-rugged is quite unimportant to this story – and to his story. What matters is his character, the man within; and about that I can tell you quite enough to provide an adequate introduction. So, that’s where we’ll start … 13

Joseph and the Three Gifts Joseph is proud of his heritage, descended, across millennia, from (as he will readily quote) ‘the house and lineage of David’ – that, of course, is King David. He can go way back beyond David, too, as he’ll tell anyone willing to listen to the genealogical roll call. In fact, he claims to trace his family, via Jacob, Isaac and Abraham, to Adam himself – and thus to the Creator. Despite his noble links with ancient royalty, there is nothing regal about Joseph’s life when I first encounter him. It has, however, a firm and constant foundation; for, as well as being gratified by his antecedents, he is proud, too, of his skill as a carpenter. Actually, ‘carpenter’ is far too demeaning a term for such a craftsman with wood whose calloused hands are adept with handsaw, chisel and plane, practised at the lathe, well-used to the placing of a nail, the wielding of a hammer. Whilst furniture purchased from Joseph’s workshop is plain, homely and functional, it has a simple grace, giving its presence in the home a certain artless beauty that sets it apart from the everyday. 14

Annunciations But Joseph has his worries. He is no longer as young as he was – let say, for argument’s sake, early-to-mid-thirties – and with no children, there’s no one to carry forward those prized qualities of his life into future generations. As things stand, the reputation of Joseph the carpenter will die with him – or, indeed, long before that, as and when his eyesight and energies inevitably begin to wane and fail. Nazareth, twelve miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee, is a village of little or no importance: if oral tradition is to be trusted, it has long been a common insult to ask whether anything good could ever come out of Nazareth. The locals including Joseph react to such slanders with indignation, as folks tend to do when others attack the place they call home. Apart from which, Nazareth is where Joseph meets Mary. Maybe the encounter comes about through someone knowing someone else who is a cousin of a neighbour’s friend (the circumstances are actually unimportant) and, although she a good few years his junior, his 15

Joseph and the Three Gifts pulse misses a beat at her shy smile and his heart leaps and takes hope. Perhaps it happens thus – by nature I am a romantic – but it may be that their eventual betrothal is a somewhat more practical agreement along the lines of a business transaction: an investment, by way of a dowry (carpentry provides a steady income) paid to Mary’s parents – let’s call them, in keeping with some accounts of men, Joachim and Anne – in exchange for a wife and a future mother of children. However it comes about, they are duly betrothed. Plans are in hand for the wedding and their life together, when there falls upon this pleasant couple and their seemingly uncomplicated arrangement a mallet blow as heavy as any Joseph ever plied at his work. In the way that only a woman knows, even one who is young and innocent of much about the ways of the world, Mary knows that she is going to have a child. And that is where I come in. Some have named me Gabriel, but the names men give us matter little. God knows who we are and 16

Annunciations that is enough. However, since Gabriel is a familiar name, I am happy to go by it for the telling of this tale. You will understand now, perhaps, why I set little store by the outward looks of humankind: our way of looking is not yours. You look first at the outer and, only then, at what is within. Angels have to look from the inside out.That’s how God arranged it; and, as far as I’m able to judge, it’s more of an asset than a hindrance. But to return to Joseph and his fiancée; they are overwhelmed by the unimaginable and divided by the inexplicable. Time, then to send in the angels; after all, they have a wellchronicled history as experts in the delicate job of making known the ways of God to man. I need not repeat the story of my visitation to Mary: it has been immortalised by the greatest artists in the world and, despite my first-hand knowledge of the meeting, I will not quibble with any of their various interpretations. All that need concern us are the simple facts: a young girl, desperately 17

Joseph and the Three Gifts fearful at first – it is not easy to accept the concept of a virgin birth, especially if you are the virgin – but then swiftly accepting, with a wisdom beyond her years, that what is to be will be; that she is to bear a son whose name has already been decreed as ‘Jesus’ and who is to be called the Son of the Most High. No one should think that Mary’s response – ‘be it unto me according to thy word’ – is easily said or, come to that, fully understood, but faith miraculously transports the impossible into the sphere of the feasible and makes viable the seemingly absurd. As for her betrothed, it is not so straightforward. Joseph is a good man – I should, perhaps, have mentioned that earlier, but then you may already have guessed as much for yourself. If you were looking for a word to describe Joseph, you might settle on ‘decent’, ‘honourable’ or ‘virtuous’. But, to my mind, ‘good’ is good enough, going as it does straight to the heart of the matter. And, being a good man, he has no wish to see Mary’s young life destroyed by disgrace. The solution in Joseph’s mind is obvious, however 18

Annunciations painful: an end to their betrothal by a discreet separation. But that is not part of the plan. So, to use an archaic word another annunciation is called for. However, to tell a man that the young woman he was intending to marry is about to conceive a child that is from God and is God, is not easy for either of us. Joseph’s way of looking at the world is simple – do not misunderstand me, he is not simple, far from it – but he is uncomplicated, whereas my news is phenomenally complicated. His thoughts about religion are still pretty much what he had been taught as a child. His faith is humble, his expectations of God are modest and, like most people, he has zero previous experience of encountering angels. It is recorded that I appeared to Joseph in a dream and that will do: meetings with angels are not that common – though maybe not as infrequent as you might at first suppose – and if rationalising the experience as a dream makes it seem a little less outlandish to the one visited, then where’s the harm in that? 19

Joseph and the Three Gifts And, in any case, to think of Joseph as something of a dreamer only gives greater definition to his character; it suggests sensitivity and intuition, and aligns him with his ancestor and namesake whose story is told in the Book of Genesis and who was a noted dreamer of dreams. Here I am, then, in the dream of this later Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth …. I have to say, for a man in a dream, he does a lot of pacing to and fro, asking questions that cannot be glibly answered, demanding explanations that require a degree more patience to understand than a man in his predicament is ready to give. It is a tussle that, for me, brings back centuries-old memories of a night of wrestling with one of his forebears, Jacob …. Like many passionate personal discussions, it begins with the focus fixed on the pain of injustice, the wound of having been wronged, before moving on to the hurt of humiliation. But, as I’ve said, Joseph is a good man and, eventually, he finds a way to accommodate the possibility – and then accept the truth – of 20

Annunciations what I tell him: that Mary’s child is the work of the Holy Spirit. Naturally, he still wonders what exactly that means. Angels may understand and theologians hypothesise about the nature of such an entity, but for most people – including carpenters who are also good men – it is a real challenge. But, by the time Joseph awakes from what he will later refer to as his dream, he has reached the conclusion that – although it is all still outside his full comprehension – he has somehow been caught up in a kind of divine intrusion into the history of the world that will reach farther than the farthest fields of Nazareth. The outcome? Joseph will, as planned, take Mary as his wife and assume the responsibility of caring for a child he had not fathered. In making this decision, however, he doesn’t fully reckon with the local ramifications. When the news breaks, it is beyond shocking. In a parochial little town like Nazareth, conventional to its very roots, it is the all-consuming subject of gossip and speculation. Joseph’s betrothed, young Mary, 21

Joseph and the Three Gifts unblemished child of honourable and devout parents is – to use the discreet euphemism of the biblical translators – ‘with child’: out of wedlock and out of kilter with every right and decent rule of social propriety. The depth and degree of the shame visited on these two families is profound. One question, whispered and muttered, is on everyone’s lips. Who was responsible for this awkwardly premature pregnancy? Was it Joseph? After years of celibacy, had he too eagerly cast aside decorum and – like his ancestor, Adam – recklessly snatched what was not his to enjoy? Or had another stolen into the heart of the garden and, with the serpent’s guile that seduced luckless Eve, plundered forbidden fruit? But Joseph and Mary, boldly putting their faith in God and each other, get married and weather the storm; and, as is so often the way with tittle-tattling affairs, the outrage proves to be little more than a nine day’s wonder. It’s true that, for a short while, the business of Nazareth’s premier carpenter suffers a minor setback; but human pragmatism rises above most troubles and, eventually and 22

Annunciations necessarily, the need for a new table, chair or bed overtakes the tut-tutting expressions of disapproval. Then comes a day when Mary receives unexpected family news and goes off, alone, to the hill country of Judah to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Despite Elizabeth being well past the age for bearing children, it emerges that she is also expecting a baby: a boy who will grow up to play a significant role in this story. Meanwhile, Joseph, marvelling at the fact that miracles do not always come singly, concentrates on his daily tasks: cutting and sawing; making sturdy joints; vigorously smoothing surfaces and chiselling simple, honest decoration. Mary is gone for several months, and, to better focus his mind on the coming event, Joseph works into his long, lonely evenings making a cradle for his future foster-son. It is finished and ready for Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inspection on her return. She gently caresses the wood and smiles her pride while Joseph glows his gratitude. 23

Joseph and the Three Gifts Whilst a fine token of mutual love and trust, that cradle â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with a bitter-sweet irony â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is destined to never be used. Powers mightier than a humble carpenter are at work, believing (as they always do) that they are pursuing their own agenda and so miss the reality that they are, in truth, merely part of a larger plan drawn by a greater architect. So, although his part in this narrative is brief, it is time to cue the involvement of Gaius Octavius Thurinus, more commonly known as Augustus Caesar.

Nativity

‘A

nd it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.’ Doubtless that’s how you’ve heard the story and I’m not going to waste time engaging with historians who carp about the veracity of this statement – after all, human memory is 27

Joseph and the Three Gifts more transient than the life of a mayfly, as you will know if you’ve ever got to the top of a flight of stairs only to have forgotten why you climbed them. So, to continue … Eight months on from when we last met him, Joseph is sweeping wood-shavings and sawdust out of his workshop door. Since it is a mechanical task requiring little concentration, his thoughts are far away – well over ninety miles, or so he reckons – in Bethlehem. It is the city of his ancestor, King David, but he has never been there. Why would he? Travel ninety miles or more, for what? But, like it or not, Bethlehem is where he now has to go, as required by Caesar Augustus, in order to be registered in a census! These Romans with all their confounded rules and regulations – and taxes! Without realising he has done so, Joseph has stopped brushing. He can feel anxiety welling up and taking hold. It would be a bad enough journey at the best of times, but there is Mary: now in the last month of her first pregnancy. How is he to travel ninety miles with a wife 28

Nativity who, at best, would find the journey arduous and who, at worst, might go into labour at any point along the way? Some men might have resented being in such a situation; might have asked, not unreasonably, why him? But, as you are by now aware, Joseph isn’t ‘some men’. Instead, he seeks advice from an old woman who lives a few doors away and who took his side when the scandal first became public, solely on the principle that anyone who has everyone against them deserves at least one champion. She is a midwife and, when she was a young girl, had helped bring Joseph into the world and, years later, had done the same for Mary. This no-nonsense, down-to-earth woman explains to this bachelor-minded married man the essential facts of life about giving birth, recommends that he ask a woman’s help and tells him those things that an expectant mother needs to hear in order to get her through the ordeal. Sending him off to pack what is needed for the journey, she adds – as if she were confident that her observations would be duly 29

Joseph and the Three Gifts noted in high places – that if this baby really is from God, then God had better make pretty sure He is keeping an eye on things! The house and workshop are shuttered and locked and Joseph settles Mary on the old donkey that has hitherto spent its weary life carrying the carpenter’s tables and chairs to their new homes. Forgive the interjection, but I need to say something about the donkey. I realise that this is superfluous because for hundreds of years the presence of the donkey has been taken for granted; understandably, since this much put-upon animal has been depicted as having a humble, but significant, role in the telling of this tale. But the truth is, there’s no official basis for involving a donkey in the narrative other than a need to take a ninetymile journey. Nevertheless, I’m glad that someone decided to give Mary a donkey to ride upon, if only because, one day, her asyet-unborn son will also ride on a donkey towards his destiny. You don’t need to know much about Joseph and Mary’s journey: the laborious daily 30

Domestic Monastery

R O NA L D ROLHEISER

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 1 Spencer Court 140 – 142 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4JJ First published in the USA in 2019 by Paraclete Press Brewster, Massachusetts Copyright © 2019 by Ronald Rolheiser ISBN: 978-0-232-53412-2 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow

CONTENTS ONE

Monasticism

Family Life

TWO

Domestic Monastery

THREE

Real Friendship FOUR

Lessons FIVE

Ritual

the Monastic Cell Sustaining Prayer

SIX

Tensions

NINE

41 49

Parenting

A Spirituality Spirituality

Spirituality

SEVEN

EIGHT

the Seasons

The Sacredness

Time

TEN

Our Lives

69 77

Lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Key Question

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ONE

M on a st ic i sm Fa m i ly Lif e

here is a tradition, strong among spiritual writers, that we will not advance within the spiritual life unless we pray at least an hour a day privately.

I was stressing this one day in a talk, when a lady asked how this might apply to her, given that she was home with young children who demanded her total attention. “Where would I ever find an uninterrupted hour each day?” she moaned. “I would, I am afraid, be praying with children screaming and tugging at my pant legs.” A few years ago, I might have been tempted to point out to her that if her life was that hectic then she, of all people, needed time daily away from her children, for private prayer, among other things. As it is, I gave her different advice: “If you are home alone with small children whose needs give you little uninterrupted time, then you don’t need an hour of private prayer daily. Raising small children, if it is done with love and generosity, will do for you exactly what private prayer does.” Left unqualified, that is a dangerous statement. It, in fact, suggests that raising children is a functional substitute for prayer.

However, in making the assertion that a certain service—in this case, raising children—can in fact be prayer, I am bolstered by the testimony of contemplatives themselves. Carlo Carretto, one of the twentieth century’s best spiritual writers, spent many years in the Sahara Desert by himself praying. Yet he once confessed that he felt that his mother, who spent nearly thirty years raising children, was much more contemplative than he was, and less selfish. If that is true, and Carretto suggests that it is, the conclusion we should draw is not that there was anything wrong with his long hours of solitude in the desert, but that there was something very right about the years his mother lived an interrupted life amid the noise and demands of small children. St. John of the Cross, in speaking about the very essence of the contemplative life, writes: “But they, O my God and my life, will see and experience your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus enabling themselves to experience and enjoy you” (The Living Flame, 2.17). In this statement, John suggests that there are two elements crucial to the contemplative’s experience of

10 • Domestic Monastery

¢ “But they, O my God and my life, will see and experience your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus enabling themselves to experience and enjoy you” — St. John of the Cross

Monasticism

Family Life • 11

12 â&#x20AC;˘ Domestic Monastery

God—namely, withdrawal from the world, and the bringing of oneself into harmony with the mild. Although his writings were intended primarily for monks and contemplative nuns who physically withdraw from the world so as to seek a deeper empathy with it, his principles are just as true for those who cannot withdraw physically. Certain vocations—for example, raising children— offer a perfect setting for living a contemplative life. They provide a desert for reflection, a real monastery. The mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is certainly monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centers of social life and from the centers of important power. She feels removed. Moreover, her constant contact with young children, the mildest of the mild, gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild and learn empathy and unselfishness. Perhaps more so even than the monk or the minister of the gospel, she is forced, almost against her will, to mature. For years, while she is raising small children, her time is not her own, her own needs have to be put into second place, and every time she turns around some hand is reaching out demanding something. Years of Monasticism

Family Life • 13

this will mature most anyone. It is because of this that she does not need, during this time, to pray for an hour a day. And it is precisely because of this that the rest of us, who do not have constant contact with small children, need to pray privately daily. We, to a large extent, do not have to withdraw. We can, often, put our own needs first. We can claim some of our own time. We do not work with what is mild. Our worlds are professional, adult, cold, and untender. Outside of prayer, we run a tremendous risk of becoming selfish and bringing ourselves into harmony with what is untender. Monks and contemplative nuns withdraw from the world to try to become less selfish, more tender, and more in harmony with the mild. To achieve this, they pray for long hours in solitude. Mothers with young children are offered the identical privilege: withdrawal, solitude, the mild. But they do not need the long hours of private prayerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the demands and mildness of the very young are a functional substitute.

14 â&#x20AC;˘ Domestic Monastery

Monasticism

Family Life â&#x20AC;˘ 15

TWO

D om e st ic M on a st e r y

etâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s return to Carlo Carretto, that terrific spiritual writer of the past half century, who lived for more than a dozen years as a hermit in the

Sahara Desert. Alone, with only the Blessed Sacrament for company, milking a goat for his food, and translating the Bible into the local Bedouin language, he prayed for long hours by himself. But when he returned to his native Italy one day to visit his mother, he came to that startling realization mentioned in chapter 1: His mother, who for more than thirty years had been so busy raising a family that she scarcely had a private minute for herself, was more contemplative than he was. Carretto, though, was careful to draw the right lesson from this. What this taught was not that there was anything wrong with what he had been doing in living as a hermit. The lesson was rather that there was something wonderfully right about what his mother had been doing all these years as she lived the interrupted life amidst the noise and incessant demands of small children. He had been in a monastery, but so had she.

What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart, period. It is also a place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that time is not ours, but God’s. Just like a monastery, our home and our duties can teach us those things. The vocation of monastic monks and nuns is to physically withdraw from the world. But the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries and become monks and nuns. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation. They too provide a desert for reflection. St. Bernard, one of the great architects of monasticism, used to refer to the “monastic bell.” All monasteries have a bell. Bernard, in writing his rules for monasticism, told his monks that whenever the monastic bell rang, they were to drop whatever they were doing and go immediately to the particular activity (prayer, meals, work, study, sleep) to which the bell was summoning them. He was adamant that they respond immediately, stating that if they were writing a letter they were to stop in mid-sentence when the bell rang. The idea in his mind was that when the bell called, it called you to the next task and you were to respond immediately, not because you want to, but

18 • Domestic Monastery

Domestic Monastery â&#x20AC;˘ 19

because it’s time for that task and time isn’t your time, it’s God’s time. For him, the monastic bell was intended as a discipline to stretch the heart by always taking you beyond your own agenda to God’s agenda. So, let’s return again to Carlo Carretto’s mother. Any mother or father, while raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against the will, to constantly stretch the heart. For years, while raising children, her or his time is never her or his own. Personal needs have to be kept in second place, and every time a parent turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. A parent hears the monastic bell many times during the day and has to drop things in mid-sentence and respond, not because they want to, but because it’s time for that activity and time isn’t one’s own, but God’s. The rest of us experience the monastic bell each morning when our alarm clock rings and we get out of bed and ready ourselves for the day, not because we want to, but because it’s time.

20 • Domestic Monastery

Domestic Monastery â&#x20AC;˘ 21

22 â&#x20AC;˘ Domestic Monastery

Â˘ What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart, period.

The principles of monasticism are time-tested, saintsanctioned, and altogether trustworthy. But there are different kinds of monasteries, different ways of putting ourselves into harmony with the mild, and different kinds of monastic bells. Response to duty can be monastic prayer, a needy hand can be a monastic bell, and working without status and power can constitute a withdrawal into a monastery where God can meet us. This is one simple and ordinary way that the domestic can be the monastic.

Domestic Monastery â&#x20AC;˘ 23

THREE

Real Friendship

Miracles AND OTHER

REASONABLE THINGS

S A STORY OF UNLEARNING AND RELEARNING GOD

SARAH BESSEY

New York

London

Toronto

Sydney

New Delhi

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 1 Spencer Court 140 – 142 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4JJ First published in the USA in 2019 by Howard Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Bessey ISBN: 978-0-232-53418-4 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Scripture quotations taken from the following translations: The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Holy Bible, New Living Translation. © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain, Glasgow

For my father, K. David Styles. It wasn’t until I wrote the last word of this book that I realized it may actually be a love letter to you. Thank you for the day you told me to “go seek God” with your full blessing— even if my wandering led me out and away from your familiar paths. You were never afraid for me to go, and so I was never afraid of the wilderness. Your love has been our shelter and our home. Thank you for a lifetime of ordinary miracles.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;The Doctor

CONTENTS

Foreword by Shauna Niequist

Introduction

1 PART I

1 Lucky

2 Dangerous Women

3 The First Miracle

4 The Blessing of Rock Bottom

PART II 5 Walking in Rome

6 The Misfit of Rome

7 The Pope and Me

8 Miracles in Rome

109 PART III

9 Befores and Afters

127

10 Learning to Pray Again

139

11 Loving a Broken Miracle

151 ix

CONTENTS

PART IV 12 She Has the Whole World in Her Hands

167

13 Broken Flowers

177

14 Shalom and Sandstone

185

15 Once and Then

205

Benediction

209

Acknowledgments

215

In Memoriam

221

FOREWORD

I’ll just plunge right into the heart of things: Sarah Bessey is one of the best writers writing right now, and this book is Sarah at her best. Frankly, I’m jealous of you because you haven’t read it yet. One of my worst habits is waking up in the night and, instead of just turning over and falling back asleep, reaching for a book and reading till the light breaks across our courtyard onto the red bricks of the chapel next door. When Sarah sent me the manuscript for this beautiful book, it was almost like its presence on my nightstand woke me, whispered to me in the middle of the night—sort of how leftover pizza in the refrigerator also sometimes whispers to me in the night. The lights of Manhattan outside our window kept me company as I read this book straight through, and I cried when it was over, like saying good-bye to someone I love after having had the pleasure of being on a long journey together, because that’s exactly what this book is like: walking shoulder to shoulder through wild terrain, as pilgrims together along the path, borrowing bravery and perspective from your wise companion. In friendship, if you want to create the kind of space between you that is strong and durable and deeply valuable, you have to xi

FORE WORD

be willing to go first. And part of why books matter and writing matters and storytelling matters is because the best writers go first: the best writers say the unsaid and unspoken, the secret truths we all feel but can’t quite speak aloud. And in these pages, Sarah’s willingness to go first in all sorts of ways is a sacred gift, a permission slip, a key unlocking doors long closed. So many people in my life are whispering to me right now, almost like a confession, telling me the things they used to believe but don’t or can’t anymore. These conversations are holy spaces, and I don’t take them lightly. Because for many of us, the truth is that we want to stay. We want to be Christians. But the truth is also that there are pieces that no longer fit, and that’s scary, or at the very least, sometimes awkward to speak aloud. What Sarah does so beautifully is create space and safety and permission to crack open our secret hearts and speak plainly about what we’re keeping and what we’re leaving behind. She draws us close, gives us a safe place to land when our minds and spirits are whirling with anxiety about the unknown places we’re entering, these new lands beyond what we used to know and believe. This beautiful book about miracles is a miracle itself: an honest account of hoping and losing hope, longing and waiting, screwing up the courage to believe again, and finding it tremendously worthwhile and also not easy. This is a story about love and faith and family and pain and the shedding of one way of believing and the brave pressing into an entirely other way. This is a grown-up, clear-eyed story of faith, told with so much soul and laughter and grit and elegance and plainspoken truth that it leaps off the page, straight into your heart. What a gift. Shauna Niequist xii

INTRODUCTION

Dear Friend: This is meant to be the introduction to my book. But the idea of introducing this intimate and unexpected book in the way that authors are supposed to do such things seemed too far away and formal to me. Yet I knew I couldn’t drop you straight into the story, like someone pushing you off the pier into the lake before you were ready to jump. I respect your jump too much to shove you right in. I was stumped for a long time about how to welcome you to these pages, but one day in North Carolina, it all became clear. My friend Rachel and I organized a conference called Evolving Faith, and—miracle of miracles—people showed up. We spent two days with you or people like you—the readers, the thinkers, the dreamers, the question askers, the wilderness wanderers, the status quo upenders, the ones who wrestle with God until they walk with a limp. The first year was a powerful, spirit-filled, wild, imperfect weekend. On the final night of that particular weekend, I stayed until I had spoken to every single person who wanted to talk to me. I stayed until the entire retreat center emptied out and I was left there alone. I walked up the 1

SARAH BESSEY

stairs to the empty stage, still carrying your stories, your notes, your letters, your faces with me, and looked out at the quiet pews for a few minutes before going back to the hotel. It is one of the great honors of my life to carry your stories with me. You tell me about your marriages, your children, your friends, your churches, your work, your traumas, your dreams, your hopes, your sorrows, how your stories intersect with my work or my books. I carry so many of you with me every single day. I went back to the hotel after that night to eat rather terrible takeout pizza and drink Costco wine with the good folks we had invited to speak. My friends Austin, Mike, and Jeff curled up on the floor with me. Rachel popped in to say an early good night and good-bye to us all because she was still nursing her youngest child and needed to sleep. We waved her off to bed and promised that next year she would be right there on the floor with us. I had on my jammies, and it felt so good to finally rest. We had poured out everything we had for two days. So we chatted and laughed until we cried the way you do when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re exhausted. Then Jeff asked me how long I had stayed at the retreat center, and I told him what I told you: I stayed until it was empty. He asked me how I, an admitted introvert with chronic pain issues, had managed to talk to so many people so personally for so long. I paused before answering because I suppose I could have said all sorts of things about the importance of connecting with readers and the duty of care a conference organizer carries to those who show up; if I really wanted to be mercenary I could talk about brands and sales and good responses on experience surveys. But the honest first thought that sprang into my mind when 2

MIRACL ES AND OTH ER REA SONABLE THINGS

Jeff asked that question was this: Because I love them. So that’s what I told him. “Because I love them.” And it’s true. I often feel as though we are alongside of one another. You’re never faceless, nameless entities to me—you’re my friends, the ones who read my words. I think about Jen and Precious, about Nichole, about Shauna, about Jonathan, Laura Jean, Idelette and Tina and Musu and Nish and a million other names and faces. You’re real to me, not simply “readers,” but somehow, over the years, we’ve become friends. Even if this is our first introduction, I have carried the idea of you and your stories as I wrote these words. (Also, hi, nice to meet you.) That moment of answer was when I knew I couldn’t pen a typical introduction to the book you now hold before you. I needed to introduce this book from a place of love and connection because it has been written from a place of love and connection. We carry one another’s stories. If you have read my other books or heard me preach or listened to me on a podcast or whatever, you’ve carried some of my story. And in turn, I’ve carried so many of your stories for so long. Your e-mails, letters, messages, conversations are here with me somehow still. And it’s time I trusted you with this particular story of mine. This is a very different book than I’ve ever given to you. It’s much more personal. (It’s also much weirder—don’t say I didn’t warn you.) I promise you—I kept trying to write a different book. I kept trying to write the book that I thought you wanted or even the book that I wanted to write instead or the book the almighty “market” deems bestseller-worthy (spoiler: it usually involves 5 Steps to Hustling Until Your Dreams Come True without Any Real Work, but that isn’t my usual jam). 3

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But instead, this book persisted. This is the work that needed to be born. I have no earthly idea why that is, why some books simply demand to be born, come into our lives with such insistence until we’ve served them well and released them out into the fresh air. So after fighting with this book—after trying and failing to write a whole other book instead—this is the story that demanded to be told first. And so here she is. (Maybe now she will give me some peace.) In these pages, I finally tell you the whole story of my devastating car accident from a few years ago. This car accident changed my body and so changed my life. But I also need to tell you about the time that I went to Rome and met the Pope (it’s complicated). It’s about my father’s legacy, about messy miracles, about the experience of healing in all its frustrating forms, about the ways that God speaks to us and meets with us and surprises us. The journey of this book begins on a road here in British Columbia, but that road leads to Rome. And then the road leads right back out of Rome for me. I’m going to take you by the hand and lead you through the last few years of my life, pointing out the ways that I found God hiding in plain sight in my ordinary life, never where I expected. Meister Eckhart, the fourteenth-century German mystic, once said, “God becomes and God unbecomes.” I don’t think I fully understand this but these words are a soul-knowledge to me, deeper than simply intellectual understanding. That unbecoming became an unlearning to me over these years. The more I tried to keep God contained, the more God insisted on escaping from my fetters. Every time I built a box for God, God transcended that box . . . while still somehow often abid4

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ing within it to meet me there. Every time I think I have it figured out—this is how God acts, this is who God is, this is what God will do, this is what God expects—that reorienting, bracing, dangerous Love becomes and unbecomes again. And so I have been made and remade and unmade over and over again in response to the Ancient One. We place a lot of emphasis in our culture on “right learning,” but there is something to be said for the value of “right unlearning” and “right relearning.” We have to be committed to unlearning the unhelpful, broken, unredemptive, false, or incomplete God if we want to have space to relearn the goodness, the wholeness, the joy of a loving God. Telling this story has been, to me, a wild balancing act. Every time I began to tip in one direction, God would counterbalance me with the rest of the story. This is because every story we tell of our lives has a counternarrative—we know this. We hope to tell the truth as we understand it in this moment. The metaphor for my unbecoming and rebecoming, for the ways that I have had to learn and unlearn and relearn God the past few years has been at the altar of my physical body. The fulcrum in the middle of this book, the axis upon which the story turns, is in Rome. There may be times when you find this story too much or too little—I want you to stay with me until the end anyway. My hope is that any time I lose you, you will trust me enough to stay with me until the end because we have walked many roads together, you and me. I should probably warn you right up front that I love Jesus with my whole heart. I have zero chill on this topic. I think he’s worth following, and that can get me into trouble. I have 5

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never evolved past Jesus: I still abide in the shadow of his wing. Oh, and I’m pretty into the Holy Spirit. I am one of those messy mystics, insisting that God is actively and intimately leading us and speaking to us still, delighting in disrupting me. I can’t apologize for these things, but this is me warning you so that you’re prepared when it gets weird. Dear friend: I feel as if I couldn’t say with conviction that I love you if I didn’t tell you this story. If I hid or downplayed or minimized what God has become and unbecome in my life. Truly I couldn’t continue on in any sort of public life or ministry without this book being written. The truths I have learned in these years have changed me on a cellular level. Everything that I am today was formed by what you will read in these pages. It has felt as if my soul has been hiding in the Holy of Holies for a bit too long now, and I’m ready to fling wide the heavy draperies and throw open the windows, welcoming fresh air into the space between us. I want to invite you into this. My story, at last. I think you’re here because you are tired of our systematic theology books, our rules and our boxes for God. You don’t feel like you fit in the narrative that because you follow Jesus or are a good person your life turns out perfect. You’re tired of hearing that God is a judge and a rule book and a small, narrow white room, a formula, a predictable map. No, you’re ready to stand on the cliffs and feel the wind in your hair, to encounter the wilder Spirit, to have your rules of God broken by God him—or her—self. I think you’re here because you are ready to remember that Love can be a comfort and a warm cup of tea, absolutely, but God can also take your breath away and leave you whooping with tongues of fire. 6

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That’s why I’m here anyway. And there is a seat next to me—it’s all yours for these pages. May the Spirit move as she will move, and may we move with God toward Love. Love, S.

CHAPTER 1

A question of definition: What is a community? ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll (1871)

The word ‘community’ has a number of different meanings. We talk about ‘the community’ meaning all the people living in a certain area. In a different setting our friend who is an organic farmer writes about ‘communities of bacteria and fungi living around crop roots … which help protect our crops from disease’. This concept would appeal to Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche who writes in his seminal work Community and Growth: ‘When I use the word “community” I am talking essentially of groupings of people who have left their own milieu to live with others under the same roof and work from a new vision of human beings and their relationships with each other.’ Communities such as L’Arche might be regarded as the ‘bacteria and fungi’ which help to protect the wider community from some of the social diseases which beset us, such as isolation, mental illness, lovelessness. Vanier writes with authority because he has lived in L’Arche communities for over half a century. He defines the two essential elements of life in community as a sense of belonging and a common purpose.

CHAPTER 1

LUCKY

hen I woke up in my minivan, the first thing to register was the smell of Tim Hortons coffee. At the moment of the crash, my coffee had exploded out of the cup holder, hitting the windshield and the roof, raining dark roast everywhere. A panicked face appeared at my car door. He was frantically banging on the door, and a horn—my horn—was blaring. I lifted my head up off the exploded steering wheel airbag slowly, disoriented. Automatically I reached over and unlocked my door, which he swung wide open. I groaned at the small movement. I could move my arm, though—that was a good sign. “You okay?” he shouted over the horn blaring. “Are you okay? Ma’am? Miss? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” I had no idea how to answer that question. Was I okay? I had no idea. My whole body began to shake. I couldn’t seem to move on purpose. Everything hurt right up close to me, everywhere, especially on my left side, but my brain was still far away, wondering indignantly why I smelled coffee and smoke, why the horn wouldn’t stop screaming. 11

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“Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t move at all.” I could hear sirens in the distance. Another car was crumpled on the side of the road; I was horizontal across the highway, facing the west even though I had been driving north. The sun was still somehow shining. I could smell hot tires, see black tire skid marks everywhere. Who knew that crashed metal had such a horrible smell? The airbags were still burning against my body; there was grit in my teeth. “I saw the whole thing,” the man at my window shouted. “I saw it all. Good God, you’re a lucky girl. Holy hell. I saw that whole thing. Don’t move now; just wait for the guys. The guys are coming. Those are my guys—I’m a volunteer firefighter, miss. Hang in there, now. Jesus.”

“Bri, could you wipe the tears out of my ears?” I was lying flat on my back, strapped to a metal board, encased in a neck brace in the hallway of our emergency room triage. It was an out-ofthe-ordinary night at our regional hospital. Maybe there was a full moon; I don’t really know—after all, I wasn’t near a window, and I wouldn’t see the sky for many hours still. All of the rooms were full, the beds were scarce, the doctors were scurrying, the nurses were triage efficient, reinforcements were being called, and I was entirely focused on enduring. I wasn’t actively crying. I was just weeping quietly without intention. The tears kept coming, pooling in my ears, leaving me feeling like I was swimming underwater. I waited until I could barely hear the noise of the hospital before I asked Brian to wipe my ears out. 12

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“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he asked, sweeping a hospital-grade tissue into each of my ears. “I didn’t want to be a bother,” I said. “I’m sorry.” “I think that ship has sailed,” he said. “This whole mess is super inconvenient for me—bad timing, Styles. Could’ve planned this better, eh?” He has always called me by my maiden name when he’s feeling tender. He placed his hand gently on my forehead and moved my hair back from my face, tucking it behind the collar of the neck brace, holding my gaze. “Honestly, woman,” he gently scolded, shaking his head slightly. “Where else would I be?” A while later, he said, “You’re still shaking, Sar. Are you cold? I heard they have heated blankets down by the nurses’ station. I’ll be right back with one. The nurse told me where to go.” “Not cold, no,” I chattered. “Just still can’t stop shaking. I’m sorry.” “I hate the smell of hospitals,” I whispered when he returned with the heavy, warm blanket. “I’ve had enough of hospitals this year. I don’t want to do this anymore. I just want to go home.” “You sound like your dad,” he said. “We just finally got him home, and now here you are. We’ll get through this—you’ll see.” “I’m just so tired. I want to go home.” We fell silent. Eventually a woman sat down near us, wrapped in crude bandages up her arms. “Wow, what are you in for?” my husband asked her sympathetically. For twenty years now, I’ve watched my husband make friends everywhere he goes. Once we were in the checkout line at a Walmart Supercenter in Texas when I realized we had for13

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gotten the milk. He said hello to the cashier and began unloading the groceries while I turned to run back to the dairy case. By the time I returned with a jug of milk in my hands, the cashier was wiping her eyes with a tissue and he was nodding sympathetically as she said, “And, of course, that just brought up all the feelings of when my dad left us. . . .” Brian turned to me and said, “Babe, this is Susan; she was just telling me about her Thanksgiving.” Of course she was. I wasn’t even surprised by then. People trust him almost immediately. It was part of why I fell in love with him: he was so earnestly and unapologetically interested in people; he liked almost everyone, and they loved him for his unfussy genuine interest, his warmth and steadiness. Me? I rejoiced when the grocery stores installed self-checkout lanes so I wouldn’t have to ask the Susans about Thanksgiving. My husband thinks self-checkout lanes are an abomination, taking jobs from decent working people: another symptom of disconnection in our society. There is an old adage that married people start to look like each other as the years go by: this is certainly true in my capacity to make small talk with strangers. I have grown from a girl who just wanted to get her milk without making eye contact to someone who is on a first-name basis with the checkout ladies at my corner store. I often joke that he was born the best kind of grown-up: capable and kind, never in doubt to what is The Right Thing to Do, the kind who makes you relax because someone good is in charge. He’s the sort of man who started saving for university when our babies were all still in diapers, who knows how to fix drywall and plant gardens, who renews insurance and files taxes 14

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early by himself, who sticks with the credit union out of principle, who coaches middle school basketball because he genuinely loves to be there. And so, of course, he is here with me. Back at the hospital, it turned out the lady across the hall from us had been on the wrong end of a pressure cooker explosion earlier. “That’ll teach me to cook a meal,” she said with a goodnatured chortle. “Carryout meals from the White Spot from now on, that’s what I told my husband! How about you two?” “Car accident,” he replied. “My wife was in a crash. We’re just waiting for the CT scan to open up. Busy night here.” “Poor girl,” she said sympathetically. “Drivers these days. I hope it goes well for you both.” I couldn’t turn my head to look at her, but she sounded kind. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said to the ceiling. “Of course you will be,” she said. “You were lucky.” They kept chatting as the clock above my head ticked steadily. I felt relief that they had found each other in the hallway, because I could be silent and awake yet distracted by their conversation. Each time the minute hand moved, it sprang forward with a click and wavered from its new position in time. It was the only thing other than ceiling tiles that I could see from my strict vantage point.

It seemed impossible that just hours before I was out for a drive. I had been enjoying the peace of the moment when alongside the back highway, in the fields at the base of the mountains, I had caught a glimpse of a heron, swooping across a low pond in a field. It had felt like a good omen for the day. 15

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I often see a heron at key moments in my life. It began one day when I went for a walk at the lake in our town. It was late spring but a pleasant cold, the kind that wakes you up a bit after a winter of too much coziness and too many candles. I stuffed my hands into my mittens and tucked the gray hair at my temples behind my ears. I hadn’t gotten my hair colored in a while and it showed, I hadn’t slept well and it showed, I hadn’t felt like myself in a while and it showed. I was tired and so I needed to walk in the fresh air to wake up; I was looking for something like a deep breath. The sun was already low in the sky, and the trees were asleep with early spring cold. I stood on the edge of our little community lake and watched the geese beginning to swoop in after winter, the clouds resting like a gauze scarf on the mountains rising dark in the deep light. I turned toward the reeds and there, standing still, staring right at me, was a blue heron, slender and regal, neck relaxed, her long legs in the water among the reeds. I’ve always loved blue herons: their blue-gray wings are like twilight, their elegance rooted in their ubiquitous domesticity. I remember hearing once long ago that herons were considered a good omen: when the First Nations indigenous to my homeland would head out on a fishing expedition, the sighting of the heron meant it would be a worthwhile hunt because the bird embodied patience and wisdom, both necessary for survival. They can be seen as protectors and guardians, sentinels. A friend once told me that this is because a heron is equally at home in the water, upon the land, and in the air—she goes with the flow and works with the elements around her rather than against them. 16

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I stood silently, watching the great blue-gray bird caught between mud and cold water and a darkening sky. Herons are a regular sort of bird, ordinary and unspectacular and yet beautiful. Someone just up the path exclaimed and pointed to the sky: an eagle. There is a nest way up high above the pines at the other end of the lake. Eagles are spectacular when you see them out in the wild, stern and beautiful and awesome in the truest sense of the word. Their stark white helmets, their golden beaks, their black feathers swooping through the sky are arresting. Their wing strength is economic and thunderous. Around me I could hear other people gasp as the predator dipped lower over us before gliding higher and then disappearing into a horizon I couldn’t imagine. She lived so far above the rest of us. Everyone looked up, yearning for a glimpse of her again.

It took me time to learn to love the heron’s lesson. Perhaps that is because my father has always been an eagle sort of man. My life’s rock, he was grounded and assured in his way of seeing God. His certainty was safety for me as a girl: he prayed with such confidence and spoke with steady conviction about God and life. And my father loved eagles, loved the image of the eagle, loved the references to eagles in the Bible. Whenever any of us became ill or grew weary, my father would speak and pray the words of Psalm 103, a constant source of prayer and promises to him, over us—not as a magical incantation but almost to remind or reorient all of us toward what he saw as the promise of a good God for us . . . “who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 17

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who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”* My parents became Christians in their thirties, welcomed and baptized into a subcommunity of Christianity descended from the Pentecostals and charismatic renewal movements in cultural expression and mode of worship. Our origin movement is sometimes called the prosperity gospel, but in my experience it was more accurate to call our branch the Word of Faith movement. There were prosperity gospel influences, of course, but the excesses weren’t as strong or obvious back then—not to me anyway. No, the emphasis was on the Bible and on our particular interpretation of it. There was always a strong emphasis on supernatural provision and healing for our bodies, our minds, our finances, our relationships, all of the pain points of being human. The reason why we emphasized it is because we were the ones who were often broke and sick and miserable; the ones attracted to prosperity gospel are there for a reason, and it’s rarely greed. In my experience, it’s desperate need. And we found goodness there. We learned God was good and so all of the things that steal, kill, and destroy life are not of God, not ever. We believed in the power of our words, we revered the Bible, we were convinced that faith was a muscle we could work to consistent results. There are gifts of such a way of understanding God, but there are shadow sides to this as well.† The image of eagles has seemed like my father’s faith to me. The way he spoke of their soaring as metaphors for renewal * Psalm 103:4–5, NIV. † I write about this much more in my second book, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith (New York: Howard Books, 2015).

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and strength, for overcoming, was always part of our encounters with suffering and sickness and pain. On that day, the eagle reminded me of my father: its solitary strength and dignity, its certainty in flight. I’ve heard that the eagle is “the master of skies” in some cultures because it is believed to be the creature with the closest relationship to Creator, moving easily between the physical world and the spiritual world. I’ve wanted to be more like my dad almost every day of my life, but I am still me: unable to be too certain because of my uncanny ability to see eight sides to every issue and my yearning for peace above all else, unable to be much more than on the outside edge of the inside, with an eye on the ones for whom the truth is perhaps not true. My father would turn toward the prophet Isaiah’s words at moments of faltering or failure or exhaustion: “He [God] gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”* Many years ago, I walked away from the Word of Faith movement. I deconstructed my own faith, and I am still in that middle place of figuring out how to rebuild something that will be worth dwelling in for the years ahead, something worth giving to my children as a legacy of faith. On that day, my gaze returned to the blue heron still standing patiently in the mud and water, and something in me looked * Isaiah 40:29–31, NIV.

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between the eagle and the heron and then said to the bird in the water, All right, then. I see. Perhaps my father encountered God in the promises and strengths of soaring eagles. While I still believe, deep in the core of my being, in the goodness and abundance of God, I also believe God is as present in the darkness as in the light, in the valley as in the mountaintops, in my suffering as in my victory. As I watched the heron, she swept her wide wings open and lifted up from the reeds, taking to the sky, the tips of her wings touching the water as she rose, creating ripples. Standing on the ground between a heron and an eagle, I suddenly knew where I belonged: in the mud among the reeds in the water as well as in the sky. I can see God most clearly in the particularities of mundane unnoticed miracles now—small children dancing, the way my son prays, my girls piled in our striped hammock with their neighborhood friends, one wide table filled with food for the lonely, the proclamation of good news, kids in school uniforms in the dust of a deforested Haiti, sponsor families waiting with winter coats at the airport for Syrian refugee families staggering out of civil war into a Canadian cold, rejected or marginalized Christians singing about the wideness in God’s mercy, holding the hand of a beloved friend till her last breath, and one more candle burning on a lampstand to light up a whole room. It is angels on a hillside with common shepherds and kings in stables and virgins having babies. It’s uneducated Galileans as ambassadors for God and the eunuch asking, “What is to stop me from being baptized?” and Mary Magdalene hearing Jesus speak her name in the garden. 20

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I need—then and now—the God who sits in the mud and in the cold wind, in the laundry pile and in the city park, who is as present in homework and nightly baths and homemade meals and hospital rooms and standing by caskets. I need a God with teeth and hunger, who embodies grief and joy; wisdom and patience; renewal with simplicity and a good, deep breath; and who even now shows up in the unlikeliest and homeliest of lives too, as a sacrament and a blessing for the ordinary incarnation of feet on the ground and baptism of the water and wings wide in the sky. I have come to love the mud and the reeds, the water and the quiet day, just as much as the feel of the wind in my hair as I take flight and soar.

I was driving about ten under the posted speed limit, traveling at seventy km/hr. It was a nice day for a drive—the highway was wide and practically empty, the day was dry and bright, the mountains standing guard around me, and I was in no hurry. I was listening to CBC Radio 2’s classical program, sipping my double-double,* living my best life. There was a sedan parked on the side of the road up ahead just past the small bridge over the creek. As I crossed over, that car hit the gas and swung out in front of me, attempting a U-turn to go back the other way. The driver, assuming that the highway was as empty in that moment as it had been all day, didn’t bother to shoulder check to see if anyone was there behind him before swerving into oncoming traffic for his U-turn. * For the non-Canadians: a double-double is a large coffee with two creams and two sugars, usually from our national coffee chain Tim Hortons.

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But I was there, hurtling toward him. He swung almost parallel across the highway, just as I came up on him. I slammed on my brakes, pulling hard to the left to try to avoid the crash. I couldn’t. I have heard from other people who have been in traumatic car crashes that time can feel like it slows down in that moment, like your senses are heightened and you notice everything, see everything, hear everything—your mind kicks into another plane of awareness for what is happening in that moment and even for what has come before. I can’t say that it happened that way for me—I had no life-flashing-before-my-eyes slideshow kick into gear with operatic overtones. No, I stomped my right foot on the brake with all of my might, swinging the minivan left and away to avoid the impact. I slammed my left foot into the floorboard, using my foot to brace for impact. I remember sucking air into my lungs, like I was about to jump into a cold lake, pulling as much breath in as I could and then holding it. There was this sickening awareness of inevitability; I remember that. I couldn’t stop this, and I knew it already. I knew that we would crash, and the instant sweep of drowning powerlessness hit me long before our vehicles collided. This was no close call I could avoid; this was happening no matter what I did next. The inescapability of this, the impossibility of any other outcome, gave rise to the only conscious thought that I can remember of that moment even now: So this is how I die. And then we crashed. The next things I remember are the smell of coffee, the horn blaring, smoke billowing, and one man shouting at my window. 22

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A different nurse checked on us every thirty minutes throughout the night. The woman with the burns had been moved to another area a while ago. It was just me and Brian again. “I have never seen the hospital like this ever,” said one nurse. “You picked the worst night for this, luv. We are crazy in here. You should have picked a nice Tuesday morning. Saturdays are no good for crashes.” One nurse brought a bolster pillow for my knees and lifted up my legs to place them gently on the pillow. “This will help with the back pain from the brace,” she said. “I know it feels like it’s making everything worse, but we have to keep your spine straight. Hang in there. This will help a bit. Now, when was the last time we gave you morphine? Are you crying because of pain or because you can’t stop crying?” “Both?” I said. “I can’t stop. I’m trying, I promise.” “Good girl,” she said, gently touching my shoulder. “It’s the shock wearing off. Keep warm, stay awake, let’s get more morphine going.” “I miss the kids,” I whispered to Brian. He told me that my parents were at our house and everyone was already in bed, sound asleep. I wanted to be in their bedrooms, standing over their beds, watching them breathe under their blankets in the quiet of our home. I wanted to tuck them in, pick up their socks from the floor. The lady reappeared with fresh bandages from her hands to her biceps. “I’m all set and heading home,” she said cheerfully. “I just 23