A Lenten Blog 2018

I call this passage "The Big Vee".  I'm not comparing it with St George Rugby League team's jersey, with its big red V on a white background. Far from it! In the world of biblical studies the study of who Jesus Christ is and was is called "Christology". Christology plays between the two poles of Jesus' humanity and His divinity. If you consider that Jesus was simply a human being, a man who may have said and done wonderful things and made an impact for good on the world, but ultimately was as the rest of us, you are said to have a "low" Christology. If, on the other hand, you are convinced that Jesus was God, who came to earth in the guise of a human, but was actually a heavenly being, then you are said to have a "high" Christology. Most Christologies situate Jesus somewhere between these two poles, though the differences between the poles seem paradoxical and irreconcilable. "The Big Vee" that this famous hymn describes ...

Because today's and tomorrow's readings constitute all of Mark chapter 15 i'll treat them together. Rev Dr Robert McFarlane, who earned his PhD through his studies in Mark's gospel, has commented wonderfully on this passage in With Love to the World. I could not possibly do better, so I'll simply quote him at length. His commentaries for these 2 days are terrific advertisements for this bible study resource. Here is Thursday's commentary: "When I was in theological college I was taught not to preach on the crucifixion narrative, but to let the story speak for itself. As I listen, what stands out for me are the people speaking. Three moments catch my ear, each revealing Mark's particular focus on rejection and abandonment. First, along with passersby (vv. 29-32a) those crucified with Jesus ghoulishly taunt him from their own crosses (32b). There is no repentant thief to make the suffering more palatable (Luke 23.40-43). Second, Jesus' own words ...

I've been preparing to write this post with the radio on in the background. The news today, a day overdue, but these stories will continue to run past the 24 hour news cycle, has to do with Facebook being mined for personal information by big data companies such as Cambridge Analytica, which then onsell this data to political parties, or big companies, or foreign governments, who then use these data to work out how to more effectively "push people's buttons". that is, they manipulate them ...US...to purchase what THEY want, and to make the choices and adopt the behaviours that benefit them. Big Data. Brave New World. Meanwhile the Royal Commission into banking in Australia rolls on. Once again, the powerful and the rich use their power and wealth to further disempower and further impoverish those not so happily placed in life. Oh they will say that they don't, or don't mean to, but... And our government is inching towards a senate majority on the matter...

I remember being told that one of the main differences between Asian countries that are not majority Christian and western cultures that are is that the former are shame-based and the latter are guilt-based. To dig a bit deeper, "in cultural anthropology," says Mr Wikipedia, (who continues for some time here, while incurring no sense either of shame or of guilt in the author of this post!) "a shame society, also called shame culture or honour-shame culture, is a society in which the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining social order is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism. A shame society is contrasted with a guilt society, in which control is maintained by creating and continually reinforcing the feeling of guilt (and the expectation of punishment now or in the afterlife) for certain condemned behaviors, and with a fear society, in which control is kept by the fear of retribution." Shame is a painful, soci...

With Love to the World's commentator for the next 2 weeks, leading up to Easter Sunday, is Rev Dr Robert McFarlane. Rob named the 4 so-called "servant songs" in Isaiah as 42.1-4; 49.1-6, today's passage and 52.13-53.4. You may be most familiar with the "suffering servant" in the last passage. Christians often identify this figure with the Messiah, Jesus, and sure, there is a lot in it that reminds me of the suffering servant Jesus Christ. But Rob wisely reminds his readers that Isaiah's readers, in the difficult period after the end of the Babylonian Exile, would have seen things rather differently from us today. And after all, they were the original readers. For Jews, Rob continued, the servant is their corporate identity. the people of Israel, who had seen themselves as the people of God, had become the suffering servant of God. The danger for Christians is that we simply see Jesus as ticking boxes, fulfilling messianic prophecies, leaving each of...

A few weeks ago a senior Australian politician was outed for his affair with a staffer. A firestorm of debate engulfed him, her and the whole suite of issues they had raised. I got involved in it myself with a much responded to post on Facebook. One respondent maintained shocked surprise that there should be any fuss at all. The people involved were adults, fully capable of making their own decisions, this person maintained. To think otherwise would be simply naive. Worse, to disapprove of what they had done borders on that most heinous of all post-modern sins, judgementalism.  I'm probably pre-post-modern, but I can't get beyond the sense of betrayal...If a whole generation has grown up thinking that the winner does indeed take it all I think ABBA, though wonderfully musical, have done us a disservice. And although the person who argued on my Facebook thread that affairs, changing partners, etc. are simply unremarkable parts of life, there is too much pain around adultery for...