Here is my reflection from today's lunchtime Eucharist for
St Martin-in-the-Fields:
These words from Jesus, as recorded in our Gospel passage (
Matthew 10:16-23), are most probably about events that were in the near future for the disciples. Jesus was talking about a very specific future conflict that would affect his disciples and which occurred in AD70 when the Roman army attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple there. When this happened, as Jesus prophesied elsewhere, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
The destruction of the Temple by the Romans was a time of sudden exile and separation, persecution and loss. There was a sudden attack that resulted in some who were in Jerusalem at the time dying and others separating and fleeing the city; leading on to the kind of events which are described in today’s Gospel reading. The result of this conflict was twofold; the Jewish faith refocused its community life, teaching and worship around the synagogue (a pattern of faithful living which continues to this day); and Christianity, forced to abandon its early focus on the authority of the church in Jerusalem, stepped up its missionary encounter with the wider world to become a world religion. However, in doing so, the Early Church experienced the kind of persecution that Jesus describes here.
He was telling the disciples that they were going to be living in unprecedented times and was seeking to prepare them for what they would face. We are not living through the same situation as the disciples faced, but we are facing a global situation which is unprecedented in our times, so Jesus’ words here have particular relevance for us. Because we are living in unprecedented times there is no script for what we should do or say. Instead, we need to find ways to be wise and innocent at one and the same time. Combining wisdom and innocence is paradoxical. There are no manuals for doing that and Jesus then goes on to say: “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” We are to trust that Jesus, through his Spirit, will inspire and enable what we are to do and say in this changed and changing world.
What Jesus was commending to his disciples in unprecedented times where there is no script or instruction manual that can be followed is improvisation. He knows that he is going to leave them (as happened at the Ascension) and that he will then send the Holy Spirit to them (as happened on the Day of Pentecost). The Spirit will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus had said to them and the result will be that they will do greater things than him.
Jesus said many amazing things that people still repeat regardless of whether they follow him or not. But his farewell discourse to his disciples must be among the most amazing because in it Jesus says that those who follow him will do greater things than him and will be led into all truth. When you think how amazing Jesus’ own actions were, it is hard to imagine how people like us could do greater things than that, and, when you think how profound his teaching was, how could we be led into deeper or greater truth than that? But Jesus was articulating something that all good teachers think and feel; the sense that all the time he had spent with them and invested in them was not so they would be clones of him, simply repeating the things he did and said, but instead that he had equipped, empowered and enabled his followers to follow him by using their own gifts and abilities and initiative. That would inevitably mean that they would do and say different things from him but it would still be with his Spirit and based on all they had learnt from him. He was saying that each one of us is a unique combination of personality, abilities and potential and, therefore, each of us can make a unique mark on the world. His followers can do greater things than Jesus because they will do different things from him in his name and Spirit – things that only they can do for him because they are that unique package of personality, ability and potential.
Sam Wells has described this in terms of improvisation. He says that we constantly “face new circumstances in each generation that the Bible doesn’t give us a script for.” Instead, the Christian story is like “a five-act play -- creation, Israel, Jesus, church and [consummation]. We find ourselves in Act 4, and the most important events have already happened. Our role is to be faithful in Act 4, because God will do the rest in Act 5.” “The most dynamic gift to the church is the Holy Spirit working amongst people who learn to trust one another and see the abundant things that God can do with limited materials. That’s analogous to what happens in theatrical improvisation.” “Improvisation isn’t about being original, clever, witty or spontaneous. Improvisation is about allowing yourself to be obvious.” People who train in improvisation train in a tradition. The Spirit comes to remind Christians of the Christian tradition by reminding us of all that Jesus did and said, so we embody it in our lives. Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before. It’s about being so soaked in a tradition that you learn to take the right things for granted or, as Jesus put it, the Spirit will teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus said so that we intuitively do those things on an improvisational basis. In this way we can do greater things than Jesus because we will do different things from him, but in his name and Spirit.
The situation in which we find ourselves now is unprecedented in the same way as that of the Jews and Jewish Christians after the destruction of the Temple in AD70. Then there was no going back and Jesus sought to prepare his disciples for that reality. Instead of calling for rear guard actions to preserve as much of what had been as possible, Jesus sought to prepare and enable his disciples to go out into their changed and changing world and tell the Good News by standing firm in their faith. This remains the call of God on our lives and it is a task which requires the same bravery and courage as was shown by the Early Church in its missionary activity. The Early Church saw the spirit of the world transformed by God as they stood firm in their faith and told the Good News. That is how we are called live in this time of pandemic; to stand firm in our faith and tell the good news. The challenge of this passage is whether we have the improvisation skills to do and see that within our changed and changing world.
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Sixpence None The Richer -
I've Been Waiting.
