Not been out much this week – the weather’s not been great, although not so spectacularly bad as on the weekends that sandwich this week.
The Lectionary readings trouble me a bit. Lots of people can trace in Matthew’s gospel the concerns of an early Christian community that’s already falling out with itself. (Of course, people in churches never fall out, do they?!) You can see this in the editing of the gospel, like the bit about being reconciled before you worship together. At the same time though, people like me go to worship or take part in communion with loads of relational loose ends in our heads. The worship itself helps reconciliation.
Also seemingly present in the way Matthew’s edited is the need to say that Jesus has not turned his back on Judaism, but developed it. And here is a very high standard of behaviour prescribed for the people of Jesus. There’s some of the same faultlines in the church that concern the letter writers. Is it all about where we put our faith, or about what we do? – Well, it’s about faith, but real faith has consequences for our actions (the big ‘therefore’ of Romans 12:1).
Anyway, what bothers me most of all in the high standard which Jesus prescribes for us is divorce. It’s obvious to me that sometimes people are better apart: although it’s almost always more complicated than I imagine. Bear in mind that marriage was different then – and divorce – for a start it was asymmetrical and unfair on women. Also remember forgiveness: let no-one imagine they are perfect, but also let no-one imagine they can’t be forgiven – by God if not by those they have hurt.
A lot of this stuff is about personal behaviour – about being naughty or nice, but we see elsewhere that there were also political dimensions to Jesus, like what he said about the Pharisees for example. And it seems to me that the personal connects to the political – if we respect our neighbour, we are more likely to respect someone on the other side of the planet.
The daffs by my right ear have turned from buds into flowers quite suddenly…
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, whether you’re a one or a two.