Painting Fakes

This Lent I've been thinking about one of the stories of Jesus' life, found in Mark 5:1-20, and Luke 8:26-39, with a different, abridged version in Matthew 8:28-34. The story concerns a man whose name we never learn.  He lives in 'the region of the Gerasenes' (with variations on the place name in the other gospels), part of the Decapolis on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  This region is a set of multi-ethnic towns, with many residents being veterans of the Roman Army as well as local ethnic peoples including some Jews.  We don't know if this man is a Jew although it seems likely - none of the gospels tell us one way or the other. What we do know is that he had an 'impure spirit' - that is, he was inhabited by a demon.   "This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue h...

I was too busy to get my head into writing a Christmas post this year, but this is almost it.  After all, there are 12 days in Christmas, right? This Christmas I've been thinking about something that's not strictly a Christmas story - Jesus' inauguration message in the Nazareth synagogue, as told in Luke 4. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,     because he has anointed me     to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners     and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were faste...

For Christians, the story of Christmas reveals something quite remarkable about God, which we often forget. A subtle piece of mistranslation has led us to have a peculiarly Western take on the birth of Jesus.  In Luke 2:7 we are used to reading something like this: And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. The result is that our Christmas cards show the holy family in the cow-shed among the animals since there were no vacant hotel rooms.  But the word translated 'inn' actually just means 'place to stay' and could just as easily apply to a spare bedroom - a much more likely destination in the context of Middle Eastern hospitality.  So it's a fair bet that the story played out more like this... Mary and Joseph were forced to travel to Bethlehem for the Roman census, even though Mary was due to give birth.  They arrived, tired from their journey, in the main str...

Shane Claiborne loves to quote his friend, the late singer and songwriter Rich Mullins, on the way Christians read the Bible.  Mullins used to say that it was as if we had highlighters for certain verses.  Jesus says, "you must be born again", so we must all be born again. But didn't Jesus also say, "sell all you have and give to the poor"?  Why don't we all have to do that too? Since I read that, the story of the rich young ruler keeps coming up in my reading.  It features in two of Walter Brueggemann's collected sermons, as well as in the first two of the Second Series of George MacDonald's amazing  Unspoken Sermons, where once again he is contrasted with Nicodemus. All this started me thinking.  Are these stories alternative visions of Jesus - one 'spiritual', one 'political'?  Or is there something that holds them together? The story of the rich young man is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke, with only slight variations.  He...

By way of crafting a response to the wasps of mistrust , it's worth taking a close look at the Parable of the Good Samaritan, found in Luke 10:25-37. The story arises out of a question asked of Jesus by one of the Jewish teachers of the law. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Jesus) said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ The lawyer has given the orthodox response to his own question.  However, he follows it up with a classic lawyer's question - what exactly is the definition of the key term, 'neigbour'?  The lawyer wants to know who he should love and who it is OK to no...

This is my meditation for this year’s Easter Friday service.  The readings are John 18:12-17 (in which Jesus is arrested and taken to Annas and Caiaphas, and Peter follows them to the High Priest’s courtyard but denies being Jesus’ disciple) and Amos 5:18-24 (in which the prophet tells the Israelites their worship is an abomination in the absence of justice and righteousness). It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas.  The angels sang “glory to God and peace to men”, the shepherds paid their respects, the magicians brought their gifts.  It was a time of hope and joy, anything seemed possible, God was with us and all would be well. Yet already today is Easter Friday, when all the darkness and violence of the world is revealed and we know ourselves to be powerless against it.  It is a day of mourning and weeping, a day of anger and frustration, a day of terror, a day of failure.  Soon it will be Easter Sunday and hope will be rebo...