Clever questions can catch people out. There’s the old chestnut: “Have you stopped cheating on your wife?” To answer “Yes” implies that you were and you have stopped, to answer “No” implies that you have been and you still are. The is apparently no answer that does not leave you in a bad light, unless you step outside the confines of the question and answer it in your own way – just as politicians do in a radio or TV interview: “I have never cheated on my wife and never will.”

Trick questions that put people on the spot have been around for a long time. So it’s not surprising that Jesus faced some in his time.  There’s one in Matthew 22:15-22, the Pharisees question has a very definite double edge.   The issue of paying tax to the Roman emperor was one of the hottest topics in the Middle East in Jesus’ day.

Israel was an occupied land.  There were taxes on agricultural yield and a personal ‘poll tax’.  That’s why the Romans took a census to count how much tax they could levy.  Paying tax in Roman coin was a threefold burden to the people of Israel: no-one liked paying taxes, Israel hated foreign rule and this tax reminded them of their invaders, and the image of Caesar on the coin was regarded as idolatry, breaking the command about graven images in Exodus.

Jesus appears to be in a ‘lose-lose’ situation when he is asked whether people should pay taxes to the Emperor or not.  If he supported paying tax he would be accused of being unpatriotic.  If he opposed tax-paying, he could be reported as a trouble-maker and rebel.  The question has no right answer.  Either reply is wrong.  ‘Yes’ is religiously offensive. ‘No’ is politically dangerous.

Incidentally, this is all part of an honour/shame conflict being played out between Jesus and the religious leaders – please read some of my other posts to find out more.

Jesus asks whose head is on the coin he is given.  Caesar’s, of course. So Jesus responds, the coin is Caesar’s property, it bears his image, so people should give to him what is his.  It is all right to give back to Caesar what belongs to him.  It is his money – so pay your taxes in the normal way.  That is half of Jesus’ answer.

The other side of the matter is that God should receive his due.  Israel must offer God the worship and service he deserves.  In this case there is no limited tax bill, but a completely open account.  There is only one proper way of responding to God’s generosity – with the worship, love and service of our whole lives.  That’s the other half of Jesus’ answer.

So Jesus neatly turns the question back on his questioners.  What are they giving to God of themselves, their devotion and their obedience?  But his response raises a bigger question – and that is ‘how does one’s civic duty weigh up against one’s duty to God?’

Where do we stand in this?  Should we as Christians be obedient citizens and pay our taxes with an honest and ready heart?  ‘In general, yes, we should’ comes the answer from this passage – unless and until it clashes with our commitment to God.  We’ve seen Christians throughout history who’ve put their commitment to God before their civic duty, and we remember some of those people as saints and martyrs.

There are Christians who openly confess Christ in lands where that is a crime, who defy unjust public policies, who support human rights, and who resist tyranny.  They do it because they believe that Caesar’s rights are limited and that God’s are not.

There are times too when we will have to examine our conscience about issues where our society’s ways and God’s ways diverge. The financial crisis in the banking system is a case in point.  Even if we didn’t really understand the details, it affected us all.

And what might God have to say about the part that society has played in building up the now failing financial systems, or about the actions that bankers have taken on our behalf.  It’s easy to say that it’s the fault of ‘the City’, but maybe we have to look a little closer to home for some of the reasons.

Might people – or even we ourselves – have become too greedy? Might people – or even we ourselves – have become too caught up in wanting to improve our own financial situation without thinking about the impact on others? Might people – or even we ourselves – have become too impatient, wanting everything now even if we can’t afford it – and becoming too used to being in debt?

Perhaps we need to reassess our duty to God. Perhaps we need to continue to say that banks need to be fairer, that they need to be modelled on God’s values. Perhaps we have to be wise where we invest – looking for ethical banking practices; maybe we have to think twice before taking out loans; making investments that serve the good of all not just a few; maybe we have to remember that God is present in all aspects of our lives including our money and that our decisions over money need to be bound up in our desire to live his ways.

Jesus used a single coin to help people think about their relationship with the state and with God.  As we handle the coins in our pockets or our purses, may they be a constant reminder that God is present in all parts of our lives – and that definitely includes our finances.

The last thing we want to do when we have been hurt, is to forgive!

When Peter comes to Jesus to ask how often he should forgive someone – he believes that he is setting a high standard: “How often should I forgive? 7 times?” And Jesus response leaves him reeling – not seven times but seventy-seven times – or in some translations seventy times seven – 490 times. “As often as is necessary,” is Jesus’ response. ‘Keep forgiving until you completely lose count!’

Jesus then tells a story to help us understand that it is because we have been loved so much, forgiven so much ourselves by God, that we should forgive others. Jesus’ story is about a servant who has a wife and children and has overspent on all his credit cards, someone who has maxed out. He has stacked up a huge amount of debt with his boss.

The Boss calls for his servant and demands repayment of what is owed. The servant falls on his knees and begs to be given more time to pay. The master, the boss, feels sorry for his servant and lets him off the whole debt! Just like that! The debt is cancelled. How does the servant feel?

So, here is this happy, free servant. He’s wandering back from the house of his master, his boss, to tell his family the good news. He’s over the moon, he’s delighted, it is wonderful. And he meets a fellow servant of his boss, his master. This fellow servant owes him a few quid.

And the same thing happens; this other servant falls on his knees and begs to be given more time to pay. But what does the first servant do? He grabs him by the neck and shakes him and has him thrown into prison until he can pay the debt.

I think Jesus wants us to ask ourselves this question: Is it reasonable for the first servant to behave this way with the second? Is it fair and right? What do we think?

No, it isn’t. Yet forgiveness remains something we find difficult – often impossible. Not just in our personal circumstances … As we think back over the last 100 years we can remember many seemingly unforgivable acts. The Holocaust, South African Apatheid, The Rwandan Genocide, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the Moors Murders, the Shipman affair, 9/11 and 7/7. And as we dwell on those atrocities we feel the pain of those who took the greatest hurt, we feel something of their anger and we feel justified in refusing to allow the possibility of forgiveness to the perpetrators. They are unforgiveable – forgiveness is surely not possible for the Hitlers, the Hutu Interahamwe, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, Harold Shipman, for the terrorists who bombed the twin towers in New York or the bus and tube in London, for those who behead their enemies …………

And yet … there is another perspective we have to hear. We have to hear the voices of people like Desmond Tutu who suffered under the injustice of Apartheid, who became Archbishop of Cape Town, who organised the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, who also had a part to play in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide.

In his book, “No Future Without Forgiveness” about the work of reconciliation in South Africa, he talks of visiting Rwanda in 1995 and of speaking in a stadium rally: … “I told them that the cycle of reprisal and counter-reprisal that had characterized their national history had to be broken, and that the only way to do this was to go beyond retributive justice to restorative justice, to move on to forgiveness, because without it there was no future.”

In the 1990s, I remember watching the mother of one of the Moors Murders victims talking about her feelings for Myra Hindley. Her anger was fully justified. No one can rightly argue that she should feel anything else towards those who destroyed her family. However what was just as obvious was that her anger and her ongoing inability to let go, if not to forgive, had a deep effect on her own life, it was evident that over many years she had carried her bitterness and anger. Not a waking moment had gone by without the desire for revenge. And in this sense she was trapped, she was unable to move on. We might reflect that in such circumstances it would be impossible to move on and certainly we have no right to judge, for her life was destroyed when her child was taken from her. But the fact remains, that she was not only devastated by the murder of her child, she was also held trapped by subsequent feelings which would not let her go.

A striking example, in 2011, of a different response, was that demonstrated by Tariq Jahan in Birmingham after the death of his son – killed by a car driven directly at him in what was perceived to be a racist and hate motivated crime. Tariq’s own ability to see beyond his own grief, and his courageous comments to the media, started a very long, and no doubt extremely painful, process for himself, of being able to let go of the anger and bitterness he must feel. But not only did he begin to set himself free, his timely comments set his own community free from a desperate cycle of revenge

These matters are not easy to engage with.

When we think of forgiveness as letting the other person off the hook, of setting them free, then perhaps we can understand and sympathize with a refusal to forgive. But when we realize that a failure to forgive doesn’t so much imprison the one who has harmed us, but rather imprisons us in bitterness and hatred, in a constant desire for revenge – then we have to forgive, we have to let go – for without doing so we cannot move on, we are trapped, we are imprisoned by our own choice. And as a result we continue to give the person who harmed us in the past, on-going power over us. We get hurt again and again.

Put like this, it seems that for our own sanity, forgiveness is ultimately our only option. We have to begin, however hard it is to do so, to find a way to forgive.

Jesus suggests in his story that we’ll only begin to be able to forgive, if we can comprehend how much we ourselves are loved, how much we been forgiven. Jesus says that it is when we know that we are loved without conditions, that we can begin to show that kind of love to others.  The love God has for us is that kind of love.

Every time we have a baptism I am reminded of that love. Baptism is a sign of God’s forgiving, generous love, offered to a child before he or she can possibly have done enough to deserve that love. Our baptism and the repeated occasions when we see a child or an adult baptized are our personal sign of God’s love.

Baptism reminds all of us that we are loved by God – no matter what. It’s a sign that if we give our lives to God, then we’ll begin to understand that we have been loved and accepted from the beginning.

We need to hold onto this truth – that real forgiveness is ours. Baptism is a sign of this.

Our regular Sunday services also allow time for confession and for us to hear God’s words of forgiveness for us. Reminders of just how crucial forgiveness is.

It is in the security and strength of God’s forgiving love that we can be free to love, and that we can begin to forgive others generously in return. Yes, for their sake and for God’s sake, but also perhaps most crucially for the sake of our own health and well-being as well.

Have you noticed how when you tell a child not to do something, they seem to become more determined than ever to do that one thing?  When you tell a child not to play with matches, you seem to put the idea into their head that matches are extremely exciting to play with!

And it’s not just children, there is something fascinating about anything forbidden that seems to entice us to do things we know we shouldn’t; Just to be awkward, or to find out what will happen, to satisfy our curiosity.  The classic Biblical example is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  God says “Don’t eat the fruit on that tree,” so what do they do?  They eat it and only then do they find that the consequences were just as bad as was promised. They’d have been better off obeying God.

Schools are now advised that negative rules are not helpful – it’s been discovered that children continually told not to do things don’t flourish well.  So rules in schools are now positive. Instead of, “Don’t treat other people badly,” it’s, “Treat other people well.” Instead of  “Don’t run in the corridor,” it’s “Walk in the corridor.”

It’s actually much easier to learn to do things sensibly than remember a list of things that you mustn’t do!   But this idea of replacing negative rules with positive ones isn’t new. It’s something Jesus did.

The Old Testament tells us that Moses received Ten Commandments, ten rules that God gave for life – and Paul reminds us of some our reading from Romans: AYou shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet@. Can you remember all ten? Where would you find them now if asked?

The rules Paul quotes are negative rules – as most of the ten commandments are. If we can’t remember them and if we don’t react well to being told not to do something, then maybe these rules are no longer the best way of governing our lives.

Paul reminds us that Jesus told people to rethink the way they lived their lives – and instead of giving a list of “don’t” rules, he said, “There’s only one rule to remember – love your neighbour, love other people as you love yourself.” Perhaps Jesus knew that people don’t remember lists of rules, perhaps he knew that we’re often curious to find out what happens when we do the things we’re told not to.

Whatever his reason, Jesus said that life is simple really – love other people, treat them the way you would want to treat yourself.  And of course, by living like this, we naturally won’t steal, be unfaithful in our relationships or harm other people.

Christianity and the church are often seen to be unattractive – only interested in telling people what they shouldn’t do. But this is so wrong – being a Christian, coming to church is about enjoying life to the full – but in a way that shows love and respect to those around us.

And this, I think, is what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 18. He is asking us to think about how we deal with disputes. What we should do when we feel that someone else in church has wronged us, or done something with which we disagree.

We might be straight-talking, here in Ashton-under-Lyne, but most of us are still not very receptive to that straight-talking, and more often than not straight-talking in public leads to offence being taken by someone. So Jesus says, give respect to the one with whom who disagree – speak with them in private about your disagreement, or the offence that they have caused.

At work, the boss who balls someone out in public gains not respect but fear. The boss who talks quietly with someone when things have gone wrong garners respect.

Go to someone who has upset you in private to work things out, says Jesus, often this will be enough, but if not, then take witnesses with you and try again. And only then, if the person cannot see sense, bring the problem out into the open. It seems to me that this is all about respect – giving the respect to someone who has offended me, that I wish they had given to me in the first place.

Jesus and Paul agree – Our love is the first, the primary, measure of our commitment to God and to our faith, not our ability to follow the rules!

St. Bartholomew  24^th August 2014

The church asks us today to remember St. Bartholomew.

What do we know about him? We’re not even sure of his name – either Bartholomew or Nathaniel. Various sources have him working as a missionary in India, and Armenia and that he died a martyr in Armenia. But perhaps the most outstanding thing about Bartholomew is that we really know very little about him. He was a regular guy, a normal bloke, not one of the outstanding well-known disciples. Just like one of us. Yet he was still faithful to God’s call.

Perhaps that is why the Anglican lectionary asks us to read Luke 22: 24-30 as the Gospel passage on the feast of St. Bartholomew. … The disciples squabble among themselves about who is the greatest and Jesus in exasperation says to them: “The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

If Jesus is to be our pattern for life, then his call is to serving and not to power, to faithfulness rather than to success, and to giving God’s call first place in our lives. It is a call to being ordinary people at God’s disposal, part of a greater cause – the coming of God’s kingdom.

Jo (my wife) and I follow the Northumbrian office when we pray together in a morning. The reflections that are provided for August focus on Iona. This was Friday’ 22nd August’s reflection:

“Back in 561 AD St. Columba arrived on Iona with 12 disciples (13 ordinary men who set up a small community on Iona) and to their great surprise that faithful action began one of the great missionary movements in history.

Many years later in 1938, George Macleod also arrived on Iona with 12 other people – half were craftsmen without jobs and them other half were students training for the ministry. Together, they began the rebuilding of the abbey and monastery which had been derelict since 1561. A group of ordinary men.

George Macleod recounts that the group needed money to start the restoration. He says:

“I wrote to the richest man I knew. He replied that I should immediately visit a psychiatrist. Then I tried Sir James Lithgow – now I’m a pacifist – Sir James built warships on the Clyde at his Govan shipyard. He was interested but asked me to give up my pacifism in return for a donation of £5000 (a very large sum in 1938). I said ‘Not on your life.’ Then,’ said Lithgow, ‘I’ll give you your £5,000.’ I’m glad I held to my principles.”

“We were working during WW2 and materials were very hard to obtain: the government commandeered all timber for the war effort. But a ship coming from Canada struck a storm and jettisoned its cargo of lumber in the Atlantic. The timber floated 80 miles and finally landed on the coast of Mull just opposite Iona. And it was all exactly the right length. It roofs the library today.”

George Macleod’s ordinary men trusted in our extraordinary God and their faith bore fruit.

St. Bartholomew’s life – the person who we remember today – suggests that ordinary people can achieve important things by being faithful to what God wants, by being faithful to God’s call. The amazing story from George Macleod of Iona is a clear example of circumstances and God’s intervention coming together to allow ordinary men and women on Iona to create something beautiful.

What might be the ordinary thing be that God is calling you, or us, to do? What might turn out to be our ‘Iona’? What might be the place where the ordinary people that we are, see God providing for us and for our community?

Is God calling you to be his ordinary faithful disciple? I hope so and I pray so.