Holy Week 2003 Monday 14 April
John 12:1-11
Revd Mark Bonney
The reflections that I am offering this week will all be taken from the Gospel passages in our Eucharist. They are all very familiar stories – some of us have heard them for years and years – what I want to bring is that these terribly familiar stories are also quite shocking and outrageous stories and if we can but allow them, they can still jolt our sense of perception and make us reflect once again on fundamental aspects of our living.
We have just heard the extraordinary account of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with costly ointment and wiping his feet with her hair. I won’t go into the critical aspects of this story- it’s very similar to the one in Luke, but in Luke the woman isn’t named and it happens chronologically in a completely different place. In John the gospel writer very clearly places this story with a theologically intent – Mary is seen as performing a prophetic act – whether it was witting or not on her part we don’t know – but for the gospel writer it is a prophetic anointing interpreted by Jesus as to do with his burial.
Being well educated Christian people I trust that you hardly need me to tell you that John has a series of seven what are called SIGNS – the first is the wedding feast at Cana – the last has just happened in the previous chapter – the raising of Lazarus – the ultimate miracle as it were –the bringing to life of someone who was dead (though I think water in wine’s pretty good!) The sad irony of the story as told in John is that the giving of life to Lazarus is the last straw as far as the Pharisees are concerned. It is the raising of Lazarus that makes them finally decide that Jesus must be got rid of.
On the heels of such great good comes enormous hate and evil. Goodness and evil are very often in close proximity to one another..
Mary – having welcomed her brother back to life now provides an extravagant gesture in reparation for Jesus’ burial.
On a slightly tangential note there is something profoundly deep and spiritual about preparing for death. It shouldn’t be at all a morbid thing to say that one of the most important lessons we have to learn while we’re live is how to die. Death is, after all, the only certain thing in life. It’s a major neglect of our personal duties, and a complete lack of care for our nearest and dearest if we die without having made a will or having left no instructions about our funeral and the disposal of our mortal remains – such arrangements are a proper part of our own preparation for death, and an enormous aid to those who mourn. When I’ve had the privilege to share with someone as they talk about what they would like at their funeral it has been amongst the most spiritual experiences of my ministry. Reading my sister’s handwritten note with the instructions for her funeral was very, very painful – but deeply moving because it was a spiritual testament in just a few words. But enough of that aside.
In the gospel, Mary’s gesture is an extravagant gesture. The comment of Judas Iscariot is understandable in many ways – let’s put it in contemporary terms – a denarius was a day’s wage – so 300 denarii is heading towards an annual salary. Whether your annual salary is £15k or £100k this is pretty outrageous stuff on Mary’s part - nearly a year’s wages literally poured away! Surely something better could have been done with the money.
There is real issue to be grappled with behind criticisms that are heard from time to time about any extravagances that we as a church or parish may undertake. How can you spend X thousands of pounds on buildings, organs, vestments, sound systems and the like when there are starving people in he world.
There is the lurking truth boldly proclaimed by some of the OT prophets that reminds us that God doesn’t require sacrifices and costly gifts to be honoured. The prophet Micah says “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? He has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God.”
Those issues and truths are there and challenge and confront us. But in this evening’s gospel there is no hint what so ever of Jesus criticizing Mary for her shocking extravagance. For Mary that lavish expenditure, that shocking extravagance was the outpouring of her heart’s devotion – it was an act of love – acts love are unspeakably precious, whether they be small of large and need to be accepted as such. Most if not all of us I hope, will have done something rash and extravagant for the one we love – if you haven’t then go and do it soon! Jus imagine how you would feel – or sadly it may even be the case of saying imagine how you felt – if/when someone responds to that rash and extravagant gesture by saying “what a waste of money – I wish you hadn’t done that.” It’s a way of throwing our love back in our face. We have to be especially careful with children – they may have saved up some money and brought us something hideous – but it’s given with love and we must accept it.
The extravagant gesture is purely for the one we love.
Mary’s shocking waste (in Judas’ terms) was purely for the one she loved - I suspect that Jesus recognised that which is why he accepted it most beautifully.
There is another great gesture of love this week – beyond the cost of a year’s wages - “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” – that was a gesture of love, because we were and are so estranged by sin from God that gesture was what was needed – our devotion this Holy Week and throughout our lives is our response to that wonderful gesture of love from God to us.
Monday Wednesday
Holy Week 2003 Tuesday 15 April
John 13:21-33, 36-38
Revd Mark Bonney
Words from the middle of that gospel passage “And it was night”.
Yesterday I said that we come this week to recall a number of shocking events – yesterday was the shocking but totally loving extravagance of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with a ointment that was worth a year’s salary. There is a place for extravagance within an act of pure devotion.
Today’s Gospel shock is that of betrayal – and I will actually look at that a little more closely tomorrow because this evening I want to give a little consideration to those brief words “And it was night”
St John uses those words, not primarily as a description of actual physical darkness – although it was evening when they were at supper – but rather with the entry of Satan into Judas the hour of darkness has entered the drama – the forces of darkness at clearly at work.
One of the SIGNS in ch9 of this gospel was the healing of the man born blind – in the discourse with that sign Jesus talked of himself as the ‘Light of the world’ – and he also warned that darkness was coming.
There was another warning earlier on in ch 3 “And this is judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”
Yet amidst this threat of darkness and evil there remains the assurance of the opening lines of this Gospel – “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
The goodness of light and the evil of darkness aren’t peculiar to the Christian faith – the battle of good against evil has always been described as such in religions and fairy tales alike..
However, one very interesting feature of the Christian tradition is that the fight against evil – the battle against the forces of darkness are often talked about as taking place in the dark – the darkness, the night is something that has to be entered into. A great deal of searching and enquiry has to be undertaken at night – in the dark – in ch3 of John it was Nicodemus who came enquiring of Jesus ‘by night’ - the same Nicodemus whom we will hear on Good Friday bound Jesus’ dead body in linen cloths with myrrh aloes and spices.
There are important things to be found in the darkness – in 20:1 of this gospel Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb early while it is still dark – and what she found, or more accurately what she didn’t find lies at the heart of the Christian faith.
Night and darkness are themes that occur in much writing on spirituality and prayer. I find these works fascinating and absorbing perhaps because they resonate with that introspective, depressive even and certainly questioning part of myself that reacts against excessive emotionalism and jolly certainties about who God is and what he’s up to. I hope they also resonate because they express a deep, deep yearning after God.
One of the great English books on the spiritual life is called The Cloud of Unknowing - it talks of a movement in prayer where all the things of mental activity are put beneath a cloud of forgetting – and the cloud of unknowing is pierced with darts of longing love. In another work the same writer of the entire spiritual life as abiding within a “quiet darkness”.
The great 16th century Spanish writer St John of the Cross wrote one book entitled The Dark Night of the Soul. Like the Cloud of Unknowing the writings of John of the Cross are within a tradition that sees a close link between the negative experience of darkness and unknowing and the positive inflowing of love.
Here is a flavour of his writing:
In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything,
desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at that wherein thou hast no pleasure,
Thou must go by the way wherein thou has no pleasure.
In order to arrive at that which thou knowest not,
Thou must go by way that thou knowest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou possessest not,
Thous must go by a way that thou possessest not.
In order to arrive at that which thou art not.
Thou must go through that which thou art not.
Many of these themes have been taken up by writers more recently. We’re being told so often that we live in a world of spiritual thirst and quest, so much that was solid and familiar is being questioned, is collapsing quite literally – there is a temptation for Christians to come up with easy platitudinous answers when as a priest Alan Ecclestone wrote about 20 years ago “there are things that can only be seen in darkened skies, questions only heard in the silence of utter dismay.”
One writer I find absorbing is Thomas Merton for whom the images of darkness and night appear more frequently in his writings than symbols of light.” He can paint quite a daunting picture at times;
“If we set out into this darkness, we have to meet inexorable forces, We will have to face fears and doubts, We will have to call into question the whole structure of our spiritual life..” Scary stuff – a picture that sees faith in God as involving struggle and encounter with our own inner darkness (surely itself though an image of death and resurrection).
There are fierce battles that have been raging in our world – there are equally fierce battles to be waged inside ourselves. I’m never actually surprised that the whole world doesn’t come flocking into the church doors – I’m never surprised that some come for a while and then give up – it may be that they didn’t like it, but it just might also be that they glimpsed that the Christian faith is questioning and struggle before it’s certitude and peace – and like the rich young man asked to sell all they say no thank you.
This Holy Week is a reminder that there is to be breaking process on he road to union with God – it’s a dark and hard journey at times: Harry Williams a Mirfield Father wrote “To arrive at my truest self where God dwells, it is necessary to pass through some pretty rough and decidedly ugly country. To find God within me I have to encounter aspects of myself from which I tend to run away and hive.. I have not only to encounter all those ugly aspects of what I am. Indeed I have to learn to love them as I would love a naughty and wayward child. And that can’t be done without considerable turmoil and perhaps agony. I shall find God within me alright. I shall find the love, joy and peace which is my truest self. But the discovery will for a long time be mixed with the pain and the discomfort of the journey.”
If we’re able to trust the discomfort, to trust the darkness, we shall find not only that we come to know our own darkness along with our light, but that in the midst of the darkness we can grope towards the reality of God. For God reveals himself in the midst of the cloud.
Jesus says in St John’s gospel “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” When we enter the darkness with Christ we will find, in the end, the light.
Monday Tuesday
Holy Week 2003 Wednesday 16 April
Matthew 26:14-25
Revd Mark Bonney
This evening we’ve just heard St Matthew’s account of the Last Supper and the part Judas played in it, having yesterday evening heard the same incident as reported by St John. I have been highlighting this week the shocking nature of the events that we celebrate – and with Judas the shock of betrayal is something most awful. Psalm 55, which was set for evening Prayer yesterday has the words “It is not an enemy that taunts me – then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me – then I could hide from him. But it is you. My equal, my companion and my own familiar friend. We used to hold sweet converse together; within God’ house we walked in fellowship.” Those verses seem to be ones that might easily have come to Jesus’ lips once Judas had completed his actions. To be let down by a person very close to us is hard indeed – to be hurt by one you love is the most painful thing.
However this evening I’m not going to talk so much about the pain and shock of betrayal – but rather the shock of some insights that I’ve discovered as I’ve been looking more deeply into Judas. My reading and reflections have caused me to realise that Judas is a perplexing figure, that things aren’t necessarily as simple and straightforward as they’re often presented. I’m not sure I’m going to offer you many answers, but just give you food for thought.
There have been many sermons about Judas Iscariot – a fair number of them trying to answer the question ‘why did he do what he did?’ Since that’s a question the gospel writers don’t answer there’s plenty of room for speculation. Some will focus on Judas’ love of money; others suggest that he resented not being amongst the closest disciples; others that he became bitter and disillusioned with the course of Jesus’ ministry. The gospels don’t give us a motive – what they do do however, by their telling of the story, is to make the action of Judas very important.
We have probably heard such phrases in the past as “he sent his master to his death”, “he had a just man’s blood on his hands,” “he was guilty of the greatest crime in history”. Certainly it’s very easy to see that Judas did a shameful thing – and perhaps the more shameful for its premeditation; but it’s hard to see why it was so desperately more shameful than say the denial of Peter, the prediction of which ended yesterday’s gospel passage – or the desertion of the disciples in the garden which will mark the end of the Vigil tomorrow evening. It seems to me that even if Judas had done absolutely nothing at all, the events of this week would have taken the same course.
The deed of Judas was by no means necessary to bring about the arrest of Jesus and to bring about his crucifixion. After all, Jesus was hardly like the Scarlet Pimpernel, a man of disguises who could only be arrested by his enemies if he was first of all identified to them by a traitor from among his friends. Jesus lived quite openly, it could hardly have been beyond the wit of the scribes and Pharisees to arrest Jesus whenever it suited them – what Judas did may have been convenient, but hardly absolutely vital – it was shameful, but it didn’t change the course of history any more than the other failures of Jesus’ friends.
Yet for the gospel writers this is no peripheral event – yesterday’s gospel talked of Satan entering Judas; today’s reading says “alas for that man by whom that Son of Man is betrayed! Better for that man if he had never been born.” All four gospels make a great deal of the awfulness of what Judas did. Yet, as I’ve suggested, it’s very difficult to see that it had a great importance in any strictly historical sense. It would seem that for the gospel writers the importance must have seen in a symbolic or theological sense. Judas’ action is important as a way of expressing the meaning of what happened – Judas is a symbol of something much deeper.
One of the shocks that came to me in my looking into Judas was the discovery that the word we read as ‘betray’ doesn’t actually mean that in Greek. So much of our thinking about Judas has been coloured by the use of the word betrayer or traitor when the Greek word for betray isn’t used – rather the word used means to hand over. You will recall the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 where it says “this was handed onto me by the Lord – who in the same night that he was betrayed” – interestingly Paul uses the same word at the beginning and end of that passage when the translators say handed on first time and betray the second time. When I looked up the Greek word in my Greek dictionary ‘betray’ wasn’t one of the many options for translation given. I couldn’t help but wonder if even the translators were exercising a little latitude.
So deep in our psyche is the idea of Judas the traitor, that interpretations of what a deeper meaning may be have tended to be very unfortunate – upon Judas has been heaped a great deal of anti-Jewish feeling; it’s probably not a coincidence that that there’s such a similarity between Judas and Jew – and it’s more so in German Juden and Judas. Even in a gospel like St John we can see such features emerging as he constantly talks about “the Jews” – as if it were a whole race’s fault that Jesus was killed. If you look at paintings of the Last Supper it’s interesting to see Judas often portrayed as the personification of evil – I remember one with him with a long hooked nosed, red hair, wicked aspect, his mouth open as a dark insect representing evil enters him.
That’s the popular image – almost the scapegoat upon which all the blame for Jesus’ death has been placed. As if we were to say, if Judas hadn’t done what he did then Jesus wouldn’t have died – but I just don’t think that is so.
However, something very significant does happen once Jesus has been arrested in the garden, but it’s of a different type. Once Judas has delivered his kiss, once Judas has handed Jesus over (it’s interesting to note that the same word is used when the Pharisees hand Jesus over to Pilate and when Pilate hands Jesus over to be crucified as is used when Judas hands Jesus over ) – once Judas has done his bit Jesus becomes the passive recipient of events. Before this, if you read the synoptic gospels carefully you’ll notice that Jesus is active and in control – people don’t actually push him around, the action of Judas is pivotal and is when all this changes. We link the word Passion with suffering and pain as I talked about in a sermon the other week – but there’s another side to it as well; in the old translation ‘suffer the little children to come to me” it simply means let it happen – the passion is also something that happens to Jesus – he is passive in his passion – not active – people work their will upon him and he doesn’t fight against it. Jesus is handed over for men to be able to do that.
It’s significant because that’s where our salvation was worked out in the passive acceptance and facing of the evil and hatred of men. After Judas’ action Jesus doesn’t do anything in an active sense – I always notice that at the dramatic reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday – whenever I’ve had the part of Jesus it’s very striking that suddenly in the unfolding of the drama you have nothing more to say – everyone else is talking and shouting, but the one playing Jesus is silent. And that silence happens with Judas’ handing over.
This links somewhat obliquely with the darkness of last night because in that kind of praying there’s a degree of passivity because the pray-er is being worked upon - prayer isn’t in the end something else we do in a world where we’re mostly doing far too much anyway – prayer is being disposed for God to work on, and in us.
Jesus didn’t have to be betrayed by Judas for our salvation to be won – but he had to passively accept the evil and take it on – and it’s there that the significance of Judas lies and the emphasis that the synoptic gospel writers place upon him.
In this Holy Week and as we stand on the edge of the Great Three Days of the Church’s year may we allow ourselves to be handed over, handed over to God; our Lord and Saviour was handed over to sinful men for our redemption – we sinful folk must be handed over to our sinless saviour for cleansing and healing in the darkness and depths of our souls.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday