Hard Teaching 8 - Why is God mean in the parables?

Why, in some parables, does the character who represents God not show mercy and instead punishes the wrongdoer?

This was one of the questions posed on the day when I asked my congregation to tell me things that puzzled them about their faith.

I'm going to take a specific example: the parable of the great banquet, which in Matthew's version comes in Chapter 22. Here it is:

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

By talking about "a king and his son," we get a powerful clue that this is meant to represent God. So God invites people into his house for a party to celebrate his son's wedding. But when the day comes, they all make excuses and fail to turn up. Disappointed and angry, the king asks his servants to go and find anybody to come in and fill up the party, and soon the party hall is heaving, and everybody is set to have a good time. 
But one party goer hasn't bothered to dress up, and the king asks how he even got in, without being dressed appropriately. When he has no answer, he is unceremoniously trussed up and tossed out, where there's not much he can do except - in one of Matthew's favourite words - gnash his teeth. 

I swear that if Matthew told a fluffy bunny story, he'd put gnashing of teeth in there somewhere. Anyway, how do you gnash your teeth?

Sorry, I digress.

The point is, it sounds pretty mean on the unfortunate guest who'd violated the dress code. For all we know, he might not have owned a tuxedo, or whatever the first century equivalent was.  What's going on?

To answer that, we have to understand who the parable was originally aimed at. If we look back at chapter 21, we see that Jesus was in conversation with the chief priests, after having annoyed them no end by pulling the stunt with the donkey and the palm branches. 

He was telling them that originally God's invitation had been for them, but they'd made their excuses, so God was throwing the doors open to others. In Luke's version, it's the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame who are invited. Matthew isn't specific who the new guests are, but the religious leaders would still have been incensed to be told that they weren't going to be at God's party, and others were.

So the first point is, God in this story is passing judgement on those who have rejected his offer. He's slamming the door in their faces, because they've had their chance and they said no.

But what about our badly dressed boy? Well, just because you've been offered a late pass to the best party ever, doesn't mean you can just breeze in without taking it seriously. This is a pretty impressive offer God is making, and we need to appreciate it properly. 

Sometimes, we Christians can think that God is such a cuddly grandpa figure, so keen to forgive and overlook any wrong doing, that it doesn't matter how we behave. But he has a little more backbone than that. Even those who think they're on the inside of God's plans need to remember they have responsibilities too.

Hard Teaching 7 - The Big One

Is God in control of bad things on earth, and if so, why does he let them happen?

Yep, this is the Big One. The hardest, most difficult question a Christian can get asked (in my opinion). Why does a good God let bad things happen?

What can I say about this? First, to state the problem as acutely as possible: 
If God is good, presumably he doesn't want bad things happening. If he doesn't prevent them, then he must be insufficiently powerful to do anything about it. Or maybe he is powerful enough, but he just doesn't care.

It's hard work defending the idea of a good God with enough power to prevent tragedies, who doesn't. Very hard work. But I promised to try.

There's a fascinating parable that Jesus told that I always reflect on when grappling with this question. There was a farmer growing a field of corn. One night, an enemy planted seeds of a weed in his field, and as the plants sprouted, it became obvious what had happened. The farm workers asked whether they should try and weed then out, but the farmer said no. Let them both grow together until the harvest, and then we will sort them out.

"Let them both grow together until the harvest."

That reflects what we see in the world - good and evil both flourishing. But there's also a promise there that one day Things Will Be sorted Out.  
In Capitals. 
Sorted Out Once And For All.
That is very important - the idea that eventually Right will prevail. This is part of the Christian hope. One day, God will tell us all the Truth about the way things are. No one will be able to pretend any more. No one will be able to say "I was just following orders," "It wasn't my fault, I was led astray." Everyone will have to give account for their own actions.

So is that it then? We've just got to struggle on through, but at the end of all time, God will finally put things straight? 

Well, no. There is something else. But it's not what we'd expect. We'd expect something mighty, probably with a bit of smiting and thunderbolts thrown in, wouldn't we?

This is what we get: God suffers too.

God takes a dive off the deep end of heaven and plunges right into the cess pit that is the human condition. He's born in a stable, for Heaven's sake. 

He's born!! Blood and umbilical cords and screaming and crying. Then he lives, and then he dies, with blood and nails and screaming and crying.

By entering into our suffering world, and suffering within it, God found a way to redeem suffering. 

If there was a better way, don't you think he would have found it?

Jesus once said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

It comes down to trust. Is this tiny seed dying and being transformed the best way to save the world? I happen to think it is. 

Bonfire night

This is my letter in November's parish magazine:

Dear friends,

By the time you read this, one of our major village events will have come and gone.

Bonfire Night on the village green is one of my highlights of the year.

Why?

Well, there’s the fireworks, of course, there’s the fun of being out at night in the dark, when everything, and everybody looks different, and there’s something thrilling about a whacking great blaze that’s hot enough to singe your eyebrows off.

The church is making a small contribution to this event each year now, by providing the insurance for something that is almost always trouble free, but where there is potential for disaster.

Sometimes, it seems to me that the church is quite good at offering insurance. We are there in case of trouble. If trouble never happens, people don’t need the church, or think about it much.

But when the sky falls in, we represent a way to get in touch with the one who can help us even in catastrophes of that magnitude.

Who better to speak to than the one who made the sky?

In the week that I’m writing this, three people who were on my most recent discussion course in the Goat pub took a step of faith and stood up in public to get confirmed. They had the courage of their convictions to stand before the Bishop and declare that they believed in the God who made heaven and earth. And the Bishop told them in his sermon that they had come to someone who could rescue them from any disaster, and whether they were troubled by disaster or danger, God would set them free.

He also told them not to think that God was only there for when their lives crashed. God is there to help life to be lived to the full.

God is there to light a blaze in our hearts that will rival even the village bonfire.

Love,

Nick

Hard Teaching 6 - No women please, we're Christians

So what are we to make of this passage?

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

I suggested four possibilities in my last post.

1. It wasn't written by Paul.
2. It wouldn't have sounded so bad in that culture.
3. It's the Bible, stupid. Stop whining and believe it.
4. Let's just rip this bit out, shall we?

I challenged people to tell me which they would choose - nobody rose to the challenge, so I suppose I'd better tell you how I deal with it.
It's tempting to do number 4. Just to refuse to accept that these words have any authority over me. But there is the strength of number 3 to reckon with. If I genuinely believe that the Bible can be God's word to me, it's hard to ignore any part of it. At the very least, I'll need to think long and hard before I do so. Otherwise, I'd be guilty of assuming I know better than God.
And we all know that's not true.
So what about the first two options? Could this little bit have been added by some later writer, and not in fact be what Paul wrote? Well, possibly, but there is no evidence for it except that it contradicts what we know to be Paul's attitude elsewhere.
The argument that the whole letter is not by Paul, but by someone else, has more going for it. It was a common technique in the ancient world, and 1 Timothy isn't as incisive as 2 Timothy, so scholars often suggest that it isn't really Paul who wrote it.
The problem is, that even if I accept that, it's still in the Bible. It's been through the process of selection that every other bit of the Bible has, a process that has sifted out some of the more outlandish gospels for instance and left us with the solid four that we can trust.
So what's left? Number 2? Culture has changed, and the process of selection that has left us with the canon of scripture (the list of books that are in the Bible) would have read this passage and not found it objectionable.
Here's the rub. Different cultures dislike different things. I dislike the idea of excluding women. Or excluding anybody, really. But I'm sure I've got my own blind spots that others would point out, and for which I deserve to be hauled over the coals.

Hard Teaching 6 - An error occurred

An error occurred the other Sunday.

I was away preaching at another church, and I left incorrect instructions about the first Bible reading. I asked for 1 Timothy 2 to be read, and omitted to say that I wanted the reading to stop at verse 8.
The theme of the service was praying for the world, and I wanted people to hear the instructions to offer "petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving [ ... ] for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."
But the passage goes on, asking men to pray "lifting up holy hands with anger or disputing" and women to dress modestly and keep their mouths shut, because Adam was made first then Eve. So the pesky females should know their place and remember it was their fault that humanity was chucked out of the the Garden of Eden because Eve gave way to temptation and ate the apple.

What???
Where did this sudden burst of misogynistic claptrap come from?

It sticks out from the rest of the letter like a sore thumb - there's one other reference to women being "temperate and trustworthy" in chapter 3, but otherwise nothing. From what we know about Paul, he worked happily with women, treating them as equal partners in God's work. He even seems to have regarded them as worthy leaders of local churches, something which went against the prevailing culture of the day, which denied women positions of leadership and authority.

What explanation can there be?
Here are some possibilities.

1. Perhaps Paul didn't write this bit. It could have been added by someone else later on, or the whole letter could have been written in Paul's name, but not actually written by him. Such "pseudapigraphal" writing seems dishonest to us, but back in the day, it was nothing unusual. Plato, for instance, write a lot of his philosophy as if he was Socrates talking - it was regarded as a legitimate way for a disciple to claim the authority of his master.
2. Perhaps we fail to appreciate the culture of the day, Women were not accustomed to any public roles, and for the church to break this tradition would have caused offence and not been understood. It was more appropriate for the church to remain in its culture, whilst pointing towards a better way of doing things. This argument is deployed in the slavery argument - where Paul in his letter to a slave owner, Philemon, clearly hopes that Phil will pardon his runaway slave, but acknowledges that he has the right to do what he pleases with his property. 
3. Maybe it's God's truth and should be taken literally. There are those in the church who use passages like this to argue that women should not have authority within the church, that women bishops or even women priests are not right.
4. Or maybe we should take a pair of scissors and gently snip this little bit out of our Bibles. We'll feel much better if we don't have to keep reading it.

Which one shall we choose? Please comment and tell me your preference, and in a day or three I'll tell you what I would do.