Nature, Spirit, Word

Paul Walton
9 September 2003

The most ‘natural’ way into the Gospel reading might seem to be through the other readings: through the theme of favouritism (James) or the rich and the poor (Proverbs; James). Tonight, I hope that I won’t bore you; I am going to reflect on the Gospel passage—yet again!—in the light of ‘Proposal 84’.

This is one of the most challenging stories in the Gospels, because it shows us a very human Jesus. It seems that people sometimes shy away from seeing too much humanity in Jesus; perhaps we associate being human with sin. In this story, we see the true humanity of Jesus that the Church confesses in the Nicene Creed (who ‘became truly human’): he needs time away from people; he isn’t all powerful, because “he could not escape notice”; and above all, he grows in understanding. Being human is being on a journey, a journey that Jesus undertook with us and for us. A journey involves finding new things, meeting new people, growing in understanding. It means change. No change, no journey.

Far from having time alone, Jesus meets a Gentile woman who just won’t let him be. Jesus is not going to help her, but she prevails upon him to do so. Later, another Gentile, a man with impaired speech and hearing, was brought to him; he heals this man.

It just wasn’t ‘natural’ for Gentiles to be part of the people of God. I believe that tonight’s passage shows that Jesus struggled with this. And in this story, Jesus wins through because of what he sees in this Gentile woman. Surely he sees something of the Spirit in her, and can no longer deny the grace of God to her.

The early Church struggled with this too. I said before that it wasn’t natural for Gentiles to be part of God’s people. The Apostle Paul says this outright. He says to us Gentiles:

… you have been cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree …

In Paul’s illustration, the Jewish people are the cultivated olive tree, the people of God, whom God has chosen and cared for. The Gentiles have been left to grow wild.

In the thinking of the first century, it is simply unnatural for Gentiles to be part of the people of God. It seems so natural to us that we need to consciously exercise our imaginations to even begin to appreciate the situation back then. The inclusion of the Gentiles into the Church was a shift of seismic proportions, and we are still coming to realise some of the implications even today. It may surprise us to hear that it would be deeply offensive for many of our brothers and sisters in the first-century Church to see us here tonight, all Gentiles, freely worshipping God, without any regard whatsoever for whether the males are circumcised or the women having their periods. We just don’t care about that kind of thing at all! Friends, what we are doing here tonight is tremendously unnatural. ;-)

Paul declares other things to be natural or unnatural. He says, in 1 Corinthians 11,

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?

Hmmmm … Not so sure, Paul …

Paul uses the same word—‘unnatural’—in his description of people who give up ‘natural’ sexual intercourse for ‘unnatural’ intercourse with people of the same sex. When Paul uses this word, he is telling us that he considers a situation to be horrifying. It is horrifying for Paul for a woman to pray unveiled, and to have short hair. Paul assumes that everyone is what we would call ‘heterosexual’; and it horrifies him that men and women should give up their ‘natural’ inclinations and burn with desire for members of the same gender.

Funny, but Paul got over how unnatural it is for Gentiles to be among God’s people. How? How could it be unnatural at one point, and later on be natural?

Like Jesus, Paul was on a journey. His journey showed him that God gives the Spirit to Gentiles as well as to Jews. It is God who declares Gentiles to be among God’s people, despite the fact that Paul’s Bible—the Old Testament—had not prepared him for it.

This reminds me a quotation that Mel sent around the email list. It came from the pen of Dorothy Lee in Melbourne. Dorothy says:

One of the reasons the Western tradition is so susceptible to biblical fundamentalism is its lack of focus on the doctrine of the Spirit. After all, if the Bible is literally the word of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit is superfluous.

The Spirit teaches us how to read the Word. When the Spirit acts, we read the Word differently.

We Christians have started to read the Bible differently over the years, as the Spirit has acted. We now read it to exclude slavery, and polygamy, both of which are accepted in the Bible. We now gladly read it to include the ministry of women, and of those who have been married more than once. We do this because we have been taught of the Spirit, but the Spirit has had to do it hard each time.

I believe that the Spirit is doing it tough again today in the Uniting Church. People who have been silent are speaking up; feelings are being stirred; money is being withheld from mission. Let me read part of the letter this Community sent to the Moderator, which appears on our website:

As a Community, we seek to bear witness to an inclusive tradition, which began when the apostles recognised that Gentiles had faith in Jesus Christ, and were given the gift of the Spirit; this tradition continued with the subsequent full inclusion of other marginalised groups such as slaves and women. We are challenged to see this inclusion today as encompassing homosexual people, and furthermore to recognise that God has given gifts of leadership to homosexual people.…

… We are fully aware of the difficulties that many face. We also recognise that after twenty years of dialogue, faithful people have reached mutually exclusive conclusions concerning some issues of sexuality. We hope—and believe—that the Uniting Church can respond to the Assembly’s invitation to ‘commit ourselves to seek to live together in peace as people of faith, notwithstanding our differing views in the matter of same sex relationships’.

If we are learning to read the Word inclusively, it is because the Spirit is teaching us to do it. Yet the Word also teaches us to read in that way: in Acts 10, Peter sees the vision of a large sheet coming down from heaven with unclean animals on it, and a voice says, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat”. Peter’s first reaction is to say, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean”. But God teaches Peter that he is wrong. Despite what the Bible may say, the Word it speaks is an inclusive word. God replies to Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean”. And then God gives the Holy Spirit to the Roman centurion Cornelius, even before Cornelius is baptised.

And long before Peter, Jesus recognises a Gentile woman as a bearer of the Spirit. What can he do? And what can we do when we recognise other people as bearers of the Spirit?

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