Introduction
After his long, exhausting ministry as mediator, Moses is about to lay down and die. No wonder he booms out this final command that the people choose between life and destruction. We can forgive a certain ‘teacherly’ tone, as we feel the momentum of all those decades of eye-watering frustration and courage. We feel the tragedy of him not stepping onto the promised land. We feel his poignant realism as he predicts them taking possession, enjoying it, only to lose it again. The Law he commends has spawned countless regulations, but its essence is in the grace-filled ten commandments in Deuteronomy chapter 5. There, jealousy is banished. Vulnerability of relationship is affirmed. Honouring of God through one another is upheld. Dwell on the richness of life described in all ten commands together. The silence of Sabbath woven in, when we accept our dispensability, ensures we will not over assert ourselves.
We can imagine the intake of breath when Jesus described the Pharisees' lifestyle as a minimum, not a maximum, standard of ethical living (Matthew 5.20). The authorities have given the impression, through long scrolls of regulation, that you have to be very clever to do the right thing, but Jesus shows how instinctive, how near and deep it is for all of us. It’s really not that complicated. God’s Law is not some enormous intimidating book, nor an esoteric heavenly dream. Indeed, as Moses said long before him, ‘Surely [God’s] commandment…is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven…neither is it beyond the sea…No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe’ (Deuteronomy 30.11-14).
What Jesus does do, though, with irresistible repetitive poetic rhythm, with wit, and with graphic imagination, is to face us with the reality that the Pharisees’ elitism isn’t an excuse for us to avoid the responsible choice of life or destruction. He delves beneath the intellectual surface of the law to look for motives in the beating heart within. Are our motives beating with the rhythm of God’s heart?
The most shocking part to a modern ear may appear to be the suggestion of self-harm (vv.29-30), but he is helping us imagine the consequences of our casually destructive demeanour towards others as having an impact on ourselves. Perhaps the real shock is how lightly we treat someone as a fool, as a sexual object, as a thing to be dispensed with.
Context
Since 2011, 13,000 people have been executed in just one of Syria’s prisons. Well, that’s one way to handle conflict. One wonders what President Assad sees when he looks in the mirror in the mornings. He is perhaps as extreme an example of the Herod-like journey from inner self-hatred to outward violence as we have seen in our lifetime.
If we are feeling merely cajoled by Jesus in this passage not to be rude to each other, Assad’s delusional behaviour reminds us just how potent – and desperately necessary – is Jesus’ teaching about treating people as objects.
Reflection
There is a world of difference between attractive humility and destructively low self-esteem. In a fascinating account of Honour and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew, JH Neyrey shows how these antithetical assertions by Jesus dismantle standard methods of acquiring honour in the Greco-Roman world. Belittling others with mockery is the first method. Competitive blaming through law suits is a second. Predatory sexual aggression is a third. Then, having blown open the motives beneath such strategies, he looks into, particularly male, motivation in the tender, fraught transition of divorce. In all of them he highlights the grave mistake of wilfully objectifying others.
We can all point to horrific examples, such as shame killings of women in India (puzzlingly referred to as ‘honour killings’ in the media); Assad and his opponents’ equally vicious treatment of captors; rape still used as a weapon of war. What is deeply unsettling about Jesus’ teaching is that he forbids us from completely separating our apparently lesser hatreds from these horrors. ‘Murder is wrong’ he says. Oh yes, we can agree with that. But then, he says, for insulting a member of the fellowship you should be held publicly accountable. Then, most shockingly, casually calling someone a fool, you face the fires of Gehenna. Shouldn’t these punishments be in reverse order, Jesus?
Gehenna was the place in the valley of Hinnom where human sacrifice by fire was made to the unpleasantly demanding god Molech (2 Kings 23.10). Pointing there, Jesus shows how, holding people in contempt and humiliating them, we are sacrificing ourselves to painful self-destruction. Objectifying people is an attempt to erase God’s image in them. It is an idolatry.
Each time we try to put someone down, Jesus shows with shocking wit, we put ourselves down further. Each time we try to grasp honour by belittling someone else, we lose honour and our own soul shrivels a little more. Last week, ROOTS’ Postscript helpfully highlighted David Beckham’s honoured place on the 75th anniversary edition of Desert Island Discs, and his thoughtful choices. This week, though, the same press that laud him as hero now want to shame him for being desperate for a knighthood. It is amusing, perhaps, to see that by wanting to shame him, some of the press are being shamed themselves. The cycle goes on. Before we hold them in contempt, of course, we should admit our dark pleasure in it all. We lap it up.
In one scenario, Jesus comically imagines someone from Galilee, having made the week-long journey to Jerusalem, leaving their goat in the temple, spending a fortnight going home to straighten things out with their brother, then back to the Temple where, presumably, the goat has run away or the flies are gathering on its corpse. ‘That’s how much God cares about your conflicted relationships!’ he laughs. The court scene, too, surprises the listener. ‘Come to terms quickly with your accuser…’ ‘Hold on. We thought we were the good ones. You’ve just cast us as the ones who have done wrong.’
There is much argument about whether the US President should be honoured with a state visit and the chance to address both houses of Parliament. Given his dishonouring of women, Muslim neighbours, disabled people and Latin American people, and given his deputy’s dishonouring of gay people, we should surely pause to consider this question. What we should not do, though, is slide into snobbish belittling of him. We will diminish ourselves if we do and become a little more like him.
By moving us from outright murder to look deeper inside ourselves, Jesus exposes the lurking corrosive temptation to hate. He lifts the lid on the hidden, private prejudices we may harbour. Who was secretly pleased to hear of a shooting at a Canadian Mosque? Who feels a dark pleasure when someone’s ethnicity is attached to their crime by the press, excusing lurking racism? Who was darkly pleased to hear of the ethnicity and religion of the Rochdale sexual abuse ring? (We note that white perpetrators of such despicable objectification are never identified as ‘white Christian’ in the press.) The danger of hidden prejudice surfaced terribly when hate crimes against Eastern European immigrants surged up after the EU referendum.
It is there in all human cultures. It is dangerous. Jesus insists it needs healing.
Prayer
Click on the images above to view two sheets for photocopying. At All Saints we will print 500 of the sheets with smaller figures on (26 on each sheet). They will be posted all around the church. The service will begin with these words:
‘We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses’ (Hebrews 12.1). 13,000, in fact. These figures represent the people executed since 2011 in one Syrian jail. I invite you to keep silence, for a minute, turning around to take in visually the number, and to turn whatever you feel into prayer. There may be nothing we can do but, at least this morning, they are not forgotten. They will, as it were, be present with us in our Eucharist.’
If the above is not practicable or appropriate in your context, you could print and cut out 130 of the larger figures, giving them as book marks to everyone, and asking them to remember these people in prayer during the week – each figure representing one hundred souls.
For intercession:
For people turned into objects by immigration legislation.
For women turned into objects by sexist rhetoric from people in power.
For desperate people turned into objects by labels (‘terrorist,’ ‘enemy,’ ‘infidel’, ‘rebel’).
For healing whenever we are the ones objectifying.
As we honour the 65th anniversary of the Queen’s accession,
God, ruler of all, renew our honouring of all older people in our community,
and show us how we uphold or belittle them with our provision of social care.
Amen.
Questions
- How might we/our nation challenge – but not belittle – the US President?
- Has the church anything distinct to offer the national discussion?
Action
- Respond to fear-fuelled politics by asking a Muslim neighbour if you might visit their Mosque and learn how they pray.
- Send a word of encouragement to someone who has been made to feel ashamed about something.
- Challenge objectification by sending a gift to the Salvation Army whose work supporting people caught up in sexual trafficking is exemplary.
Young People
Shame is often evoked today through social media. Talk together about how you can resist the shaming and humiliation of people in your networks. Consider how you could model good communication, reconciliation and affirmation through the same media. See if you can gauge when friendly teasing turns into something damaging.
Forgive me repeating a note from the PostScript on Mark 9.42ff in September 2015:
If you are blessed with skilled and experienced youth ministers or mentors, this might be the week for careful, supportive reflection on jealousy, insecurity, body image and belonging. If these texts are heard in church by young people, it might be a time for discrete watchfulness and listening, to ensure any people in a suggestible frame of mind might stay safe. It is certainly the week for all of us in ministry to pray for healthy self-image in young people and to uphold discreetly to God any young people we encounter who seem to live with an unspoken shame.
David Warbrick is Vicar of All Saints Kings Heath, a self-proclaimed ‘Inclusive Church’ of which he is deeply fond.
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