Angelic Hosts.

JOSEPH TWISTED THE DISHCLOTH gently in the wine-glass, removed it carefully, and held the glass up to the light. Though the bar was dimly lit, there was illumination enough to set the glass a-sparkle. Satisfied, Joesph replaced it carefully on the shelf.

“Whose that fellow at the end of the bar?”

The question came from the morose customer hunched over the bar-top. He’d been sitting there for at least an hour, steadily working his way through what had been a full bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. That said, Joseph did not believe the customer was intoxicated. He was in a black mood when he entered, and he was still in a black mood. If asked, however, Joseph could not honestly attribute his depression to the alcohol.

“I’ve heard him referred to as ‘Sonny’,” Joseph replied, “but I don’t think that’s his real name.”

“He would have to be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen”, the customer responded, pushing his empty glass towards Joseph with a meaningful nod. “And while you’re pouring another shot, why don’t you ask ‘Sonny’ if he’d like a refill?”

Joseph smiled. Only moments before he had been contemplating the extraordinary beauty of the customer in front of him. His swept-back locks shimmered golden, and his sapphire eyes were the eyes of an angel. But, he was right about the character at the end of the bar. Sonny made the customer in front of him seem drab by comparison.

“Thank you, Gabriel.” Sonny settled himself onto the nearest bar-stool, and smiled brilliantly at his benefactor.

“You know my name. Have we met?”

“It was a long time ago, Gabriel. But, if I recall correctly, you were working as the chief communications officer for Sovereign Lord. Tell me, are you still with them?”

“Yep,” Gabriel replied, “I’m still there. Although, sometimes I wonder why.”

“How so?”

“I’ll tell you ‘how so’, Sonny. My career was made by two major exercises in communicating the intentions of Sovereign Lord. It began with two baby boys, both born in unusual circumstances. But, the men they grew into Sonny! You never saw such men. I thought I was pretty good at talking to people – telling stories – but these guys, Sonny, they were phenomenal. The older one was inspirational, but the younger one, well, he could perform miracles.”

“Sovereign Lord must have been well pleased.”

“You would have thought so, wouldn’t you? But, when everything turned sour, Sovereign Lord never lifted a finger to save them. The older one had his head chopped-off. The younger one was tortured to death. To tell you the truth, Sonny, I’ve never got over it. Why bring such men into the world – and Sovereign Lord played a key role in their births – only to see them both executed? I still don’t understand why it was allowed to happen.”

“You should come and work for me, Gabriel. My outfit takes very good care of its own.”

“And your outfit is?”

“It has many names, Gabriel. In some places we’re known as the Illumination Corporation. In others Accusations International. Colloquially, people call us ‘King of the World’ – but we’ve yet to decide whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“And what is your name?” Joseph asked quietly. “Because it’s not Sonny, is it?”

“My names are legion, barman, with new ones being invented all the time.”

“True enough”, Joseph chuckled. “But I fancy I know some of the old ones. ‘Son of the Morning’ was one – hence ‘Sonny’, I’m guessing. ‘The Accuser’ was another. ‘Satan’ in Hebrew.”

“I prefer the title ‘Lucifer’ – the light bringer – myself. But, congratulations, young man, there’s not many who can guess my name.”

Not so young, ‘Sonny’. I’m older than Gabriel, here, and though you may not believe it, I’m even older than you. I’m here this evening to keep an eye on Gabriel until his supervisor, Michael, arrives to take him home.”

“To Sovereign Lord. Who takes such good care of his prophets.”

“Indeed.”

“And which of them are you? Elijah? Jeremiah? Isaiah? Which of those pious fools are you? Because I don’t recall any prophets going by the name of Joseph.

“But you know who I am, Sonny. We met nearly 2,000 years ago, in the Galilean hills.”

“I met no Josephs.”

“Oh, Sonny! Joseph was my mother’s husband’s name.”

This short story was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 20 December 2024.

Judge Not.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. Matthew 7:1-2

FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY men and women professing the Christian faith would appear to have imperilled their immortal souls. The second of the Ten Commandments could hardly be clearer: Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image. And yet, in their open letter to the nation’s legislators, these 440 clerics have made it equally clear that, by their adoration of te Tiriti o Waitangi, idolatry is precisely what they are guilty of. Worse still, by publicly bowing down before te Tiriti, and serving it so aggressively, they have called down upon their heads the wrath of a self-confessed “Jealous God”, whose punishments extend – even unto the fourth generation.

Then again, citing the Old Testament probably cuts little ice with these Christians. They do, after all, introduce their attack on Act leader David Seymour’s, Treaty Principles Bill with a quote from the Gospel of Matthew:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

A fine old Presbyterian once described the Beatitudes (from which the above verse is taken) as “Jesus’s marching orders”. Such a pity, then, that what the clerics put their names to evinces so little in the way of elucidating the paths of peace. Counselling men and women to use their power to silence the voices of others smacks more of violence and repression than peace-making.

Certainly, David Seymour’s epistolary assailants have given him cause to seek solace in the ninth beatitude:

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

For Christ’s sake? Who among the 440 clerics would aver that David Seymour’s Bill is infused with Christian purpose? Not many, if any. Which is disappointing, since the Act leader would appear to have a firmer theological grasp of the issues at stake in this matter than the professors of theology who signed on to the open letter.

“I am not a religious person,” David Seymour tweeted. “However, I do have an enormous respect for the core Christian principle of imago dei – we are each made in the image of God. I like it because it automatically means we all have equal dignity. It is one of the foundations of liberal democracy and whether you are Christian or not, you have to be grateful for the freedom and dignity that idea has given us.”

Well, yes, it does, and we should. The idea that each soul approaches the throne of God naked and alone, no longer cloaked in the pretentions of class, or race, or gender, but only in the artistry of the Creator’s hand, is, perhaps, why the carpenter from Nazareth warned us:

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

A beam in the eye of 440 clerics? Surely not?

But what else are we to call a letter which so clearly divides the people of New Zealand into sheep and goats – an exercise in separation considered by most Christians to be the privilege of Jehovah alone.

The letter’s depiction of te Tiriti as a “sacred covenant” is also troubling. No deities of any kind are invoked, or included, in the Treaty’s text. It was a document made on earth, by men, and in the nature of all man-made things its meaning has proved as difficult to pin down as quicksilver.

Is it really such an awful sin to ask the voters of New Zealand to validate, or repudiate, David Seymour’s attempt to define the essence of te Tiriti o Waitangi? After all, God leads us through history towards the future, not the past. It is surely blasphemy to suggest that he has forever bound New Zealanders’ imaginations to the confused deliberations of 6th February 1840.

Is a referendum really so unthinkable? After all, as another wise cleric (not one of the 440) memorably declared: Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God.

This sermon was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 13 September 2024.

The Thirty-Third Child: A Christmas Story.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.”

Matthew 2:16-18

“A MOMENT SIR, just a moment of your time, that is all I ask.”

The teacher paused. His companions, fearing that, once again, he would be overwhelmed by the crowd, urged him on. So many people, all of them demanding a moment of his precious time.

“Hurry away, Teacher, there are too many, and we have far to travel before the sun sets.”

“Just one question, Sir. For the peace of mind of an old soldier. You, who have so many answers. I beg you, Sir, spare one for me.

A wind off the sea blew the thin whisps of what remained of old man’s of hair across the deep lines of his face. His had not been an easy life, that much was plain. And his eyes spoke of horrors they could not un-see.

“Go on, brothers, I will catch you up!”

The teacher drew the old man down a narrow alleyway between two houses, emerging from the gloom into the bright sunlight of a walled garden. The teacher motioned for the old man to be seated on a stone bench, positioned in the shadow of a lofty cypress.

“Ask me your question, brother.”

“Did I kill him? That is the question that has dogged my waking hours, and haunted my terrible dreams, for more than thirty years.”

“You do not know?”

“No, Sir, I do not. We killed so many. Mere babes they were, Sir, still at their mothers’ breasts most of them. And, oh, how those mothers pleaded for their sons’ lives. On their knees, their up-turned faces wet with tears, their eyes alive with fear. How they begged and begged, and screamed and screamed, as we stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. It was the King’s orders, Sir. We were to kill all the boys born since the arrival of three Parthian wizards. Journeying far from the East, they said, to pay homage to the new-born King of Israel. Herod was beside himself with rage. The prophecy must be defeated – there was no other way. Every male child born in and around Bethlehem since the arrival of these doom sayers was to be killed. That was the King’s dreadful order, and, God forgive me, Sir, I obeyed it.”

The teacher stood in the cypress’s shadow, motionless, a single finger pressed hard against his lips.

“How many did you kill, brother?”

“Thirty-two, Sir. Thirty-two innocent babes. Twenty-six in Bethlehem, six in the nearby farms and villages. Herod was satisfied. His crown and line were safe – or so he thought.”

“My father told me the tale of the slaughtered children when I was myself a child. It weighed heavily upon him, a great burden of guilt, all his life. That he did nothing to save them – even though he was forewarned of Herod’s murderous intentions. He fled with his wife, my mother, carrying me, their new-born son, south into Egypt – and safety. They sent no warning to the mothers of Bethlehem. Did not look back.”

The old soldier rose slowly to his feet, took three steps towards the teacher, and fell upon his knees. His gnarled fingers clutched wildly at the other man’s cloak, drawing it to his lips.

“Then I did not kill the King,” the old soldier whispered hoarsely, “for here he stands before me, alive beneath the sun. The thirty-third child.”

“It was not my father, alone, who bore the weight of guilt, my brother,” said the teacher, helping the old soldier to his feet. “All my life, I have carried with me the knowledge that to keep me safe, my parents did nothing to deliver those innocent children from Herod’s evil.”

The old soldier placed his hands on the teacher’s shoulders, his face grim as death itself.

“There was nothing you could have done, Sir. There was no hiding-place that my men and I would not have found eventually. And if you and your parents had not escaped south, in the very nick of time, then Israel would not have its saviour king – it’s Messiah.”

“But I am no Herod, brother. And no Messiah, neither. The kingdom I proclaim is not a place of thrones and swords and crimes. And all that it requires is one last sacrifice. One final gift of innocence to open the gates of paradise. The life of the thirty-third child.”

This short story was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 23 December 2022.

The Fellowship Of The Upper Room.

Render Unto Caesar: What kind of Christian would attempt to persuade his brothers and sisters that the moral imperatives of their faith must not, under any circumstances, be given practical expression in the flesh-and-blood world they inhabit? To suggest, as Luxon does, that faith and politics can – and should – be separated, admits but one of two possible conclusions. Either he does not understand the obligations of a Christian. Or, he isn’t one.

THE FIRST QUESTION: “Is the ‘Upper Room’ a church? Strictly speaking, the answer is ‘No’. It is certainly a place of evangelical Christian fellowship, but if by ‘church’ you mean a dedicated house of worship, with a steeple, stained-glass windows, wooden pews and an ornately carved pulpit, then, no, the Upper Room is not a church. So, Christopher Luxon didn’t lie to RNZ’s Suzie Fergusson on Wednesday morning (1/12/21) when he said he hadn’t been in a church for five years.

Where I come from, however, we would call Luxon’s answer “Jesuitical” – meaning “practicing casuistry or equivocation; using subtle or oversubtle reasoning; crafty; sly; intriguing”. Why? Well just think about Luxon’s answer for a moment or two. Five years ago, Luxon’s political career was just a gleam in Prime Minister John Key’s eye. He was still at the helm of Air NZ, still earning more than $4 million per annum, and, almost certainly, still a key participant in the Fellowship of the Upper Room.

Why not admit frankly to his membership of the Upper Room? What is it about this Fellowship that prompts Luxon and his advisers to make as little of it as possible? The answer lies in the information unearthed by the sort of journalists who know where to go looking on the Internet for linkages between evangelical Christian fellowships and ambitious right-wing politicians. What those searches revealed was an Upper Room pastor of decidedly Trumpian sympathies, whose political views appeared to match those of the American Christian Right. Unsurprisingly, Luxon has done his utmost to put these “interesting” associations as far behind him as possible.

Indeed, his embarrassment is evident in the way he attempts to dissuade journalists from examining his Christian beliefs too closely. He told his first media conference as Leader of the Opposition that his faith had been “misrepresented and portrayed very negatively”. That personal faith, he declared was something that “has grounded me and put me into [a] context that is bigger than myself.” Anticipating the assembled journalists’ next question, he went on to clearly affirm his belief in the “separation of politics and faith”.

Now this is a rather peculiar formulation. Most people who had given the question serious thought would have used the more familiar formulation: the separation of Church and State. There are many sound historical and philosophical reasons for keeping the spiritual and temporal powers in their proper spheres. Theocracies are not comfortable places in which to live.

Jesus himself famously responded to the daunting challenges of power and piety with his wonderfully (and typically) enigmatic: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

But keeping “faith” and “politics” separate? Well, that’s a very different matter. Many would argue that no Christian worthy of the name would ever attempt to do such a thing. Was Jesus keeping faith and politics separate when he scourged the money-changers and overturned their tables? When he cried out: “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!” Was the Galilean carpenter keeping politics on the down-low when he told his followers: “[I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” (One can only speculate about how easy entering Heaven might be for the owner of seven houses!)

What kind of Christian would attempt to persuade his brothers and sisters that the moral imperatives of their faith must not, under any circumstances, be given practical expression in the flesh-and-blood world they inhabit? If the Almighty commands: “Thou shalt not kill.” Then, is it not incumbent upon a Christian legislator to make laws forbidding murder and manslaughter? (And Abortion?) To suggest, as Luxon does, that faith and politics can – and should – be separated, admits but one of two possible conclusions. Either he does not understand the obligations of a Christian. Or, he isn’t one.

Then again, it is possible that he is the sort of Christian that gave us the word I used earlier, “Jesuitical”.

The “Society of Jesus” – The Jesuits – were formed in 1540 to combat the “error” of Protestantism at a time when the Catholic Church and the followers of Martin Luther and his theological reformers were locked in mortal combat for the soul of Christendom. In the bitter religious and military conflicts arising out of the Catholic “Counter-Reformation”, the Jesuit Order became the equivalent of the Pope’s Navy SEALs – an elite ideological force in the defence of the one true faith. As is the case with so many elite units, the ends of the Jesuits’ spiritual combat missions were deemed sufficiently important to justify all manner of means.

Fast-forward to the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, and Christianity is still a religion bitterly divided between those caught up in the struggle to determine what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God; and those who, heretically, have come to regard the purposes of God and the purposes of Caesar as one and the same.

The former see God’s marching-orders in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: and in God’s preferential option for the poor. The latter believe that God exercises his authority through those he chooses to lead a lost and sinful world. Crucially, these need not be good men. Was the murderer and adulterer, King David, a good man? God loved him, nonetheless. All that matters is that such men rise to positions from which the will of God can be made manifest. The American Christian Right understood immediately that Donald Trump wasn’t a good man. But, they believed with all their heart that he was God’s man.

Which of these two groups does Christopher Luxon belong to?

As the Taxpayers Union was quick to point out, a man who took a $4 million pay-cut to enter Parliament was clearly not doing it for the money! Interviewed on camera by Stuff, just hours after becoming the National Party’s new leader, Luxon traces his interest in politics to reading a biography of Winston Churchill – a man who, from an early age, was convinced that God/Destiny had a special purpose for him. The biographies of “great men” have shaped Luxon’s understanding of both business and politics. If the Taxpayers Union is right, and he’s not in Parliament for the money, then why is he there? For the power?

Luxon insists that his goal is to restore National to the paths of moderation. If true, then we must wish him well. But I can’t help recalling his difficulty in responding to Suzie Fergusson’s questions about his faith. To be an evangelical Christian is to be a proud proclaimer of Christ’s “good news” to “all the nations”. No Christian politician should ever be tongue-tied when challenged to declare his mission. Jesus’s “Order of the Day” has not changed in 2,000 years:

“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, love your neighbour as yourself.”

The only world worth fighting for politically, and the only world worth living in, is the world in which Caesar marches to the same order.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 2 December 2021.

Bloodlines.

The Inward Journey: Indeed, this would appear to constitute the essence of the Gospel of Mary. That the teachings of the Christ are not to be read as a promise of victory over Death; but as an invitation to explore ever more fearlessly the manifold mysteries of Life.

THE EASTER STORY is central to the Christian faith. From Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection Christians draw the central tenets of their faith: the remission of sins and the promise of eternal life. In twenty-first century ears, it is received as a supernatural tale: one that takes place outside the “real” world; in what the mid-century television producer, Rod Serling, called the Twilight Zone.

Thanks to the patient work of archaeologists and biblical scholars, however, those who eschew supernatural plot devices, have been given the opportunity to construct a very different narrative.

In the Gospel of Mary, for example (unearthed outside Cairo in 1896) it is made clear that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene more than any of the other disciples who accompanied him on his travels through Galilee and Judea. This Gospel is but one of a great many “heretical” documents rigorously excluded from the Christian canon in later centuries. In one of these suppressed scrolls, a male disciple even testifies to observing Jesus kissing Mary on her mouth.

Even in the New Testament, Mary plays a critical role. She is, after all, the first person to see Jesus after his resurrection. And, it is Mary who breathlessly informs the other disciples: “He is risen!”

In Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Temptation of Christ, the obvious implications of this radically heterodox Christian narrative are explicitly explored. He dares us to ask the obvious question: “Were Jesus and Mary lovers?”

Naturally, that question gives rise to an even more unsettling query: “Did Mary become pregnant by Jesus?”

The American novelist, Dan Brown, became a very wealthy man by answering that question affirmatively in his best-selling thriller The Da Vinci Code. The idea of a sacred lineage, descending from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, also constituted the central theme of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh – from which Brown drew so much inspiration for his novel.

Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh speculated that the mythical “Sangreal” – or Holy Grail – is a corruption of the medieval French sang real – royal blood – the bloodline of Jesus.

According to Arthurian tradition, the Holy Grail was the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, in which Mary Magdalene’s friend and benefactor, Joseph of Arimathea, later collected Jesus's blood after his body was taken down from the cross. For Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh, however, the Holy Grail was also Mary’s metaphorical womb.

By following this heretical line of reasoning, the Resurrection itself takes on a very different aspect. Rather than Jesus reanimating in an earth-shaking surge of divine energy, he lives on, as do all parents, in the bodies and minds of his children: the inheritors not only of his genes, but his inspired insights into the meaning of human existence.

Indeed, this would appear to constitute the essence of the Gospel of Mary. That the teachings of the Christ are not to be read as a promise of victory over Death; but as an invitation to explore ever more fearlessly the manifold mysteries of Life.

Heresy? Of course. Blasphemy? Perhaps. But just consider what might have happened to the Christian religion if the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene had not been suppressed. (And Mary shrewdly identified by the misogynistic Church fathers with the wanton woman taken in adultery. John 8: 1-11) Christianity may well have anticipated the split that still divides Islam. On the one hand, the Sunni: who believe that religious leadership is best bestowed upon those who faithfully reflect the Prophet’s teachings. On the other, the Shia: who believe that only members of the Prophet’s lineage can lay claim to a proper understanding of the Prophet’s words.

The ever practical Romans, having adopted Christianity as the Empire’s official religion, were not about to acknowledge any flesh-and-blood inheritors of that first Easter – steeped as it was in all-too-Roman blood, gore and cruelty. A Jesus that stood at the right hand of the all-powerful Emperor of Heaven, was one thing. A Jesus that lived on through his descendants, and whose emancipatory teachings the ever-expanding family of Jesus and Mary Magdalene struggled ceaselessly to differentiate from the designs and purposes of the mighty, was something else altogether.

Far better a safely Crucified and Risen Christ, than a Jesus whose blood still flows through the beating heart of the World.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Thursday, 1 April 2021.

Eye-Witness Testimony: A Short Story For Easter 2018.

"I knew his voice right away, but it was only when he spoke my name, ‘Mary’, that I was sure."

“SHE WILL SEE you now. Follow me.”

There could be no doubting the Hebrew origin of the middle-aged woman who led me into the central courtyard of the villa. Her dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin were the common inheritance of all the peoples living around the Middle Sea, but her curiously accented Latin was unmistakable. To hear its like I had merely to open my own mouth. Clearly, the graceful figure in front of me was one of my own stiff-necked race.

And there weren’t many Hebrews in this part of Rome’s empire. Southern Gaul is a long way from Palestine, and the city of Massalia isn’t the least bit like Jerusalem. But, here she dwells: a thousand leagues from her homeland; Mary, the companion of Yeshua Ben Joseph; the man Rome crucified 40 years ago but who stubbornly refuses to die. The man called Jesus by his growing band of Roman followers. The god-man about whom the Emperor Vespasian wishes to know more – much more.

“Titus Flavius Josephus – you are as far away from Judea as I am. Or, do you now call Rome your home?”

No, Lady, I was born a Jew – and will die one. I am prepared to admit, however, that Rome is now a good deal safer than Jerusalem for people like ourselves.”

“Oh Jerusalem, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”

The old woman’s voice had taken on a different timbre; her eyes were fixed on things I could not see. Shaking-off her reverie, she turned towards me and smiled.

“That’s what he said. About the fate of the Temple. He foresaw its utter destruction.”

“You are speaking of your friend? The rabbi, Yeshua Ben Joseph?

“Yes, Josephus, I am.”

“I have been told, Lady, that you were among the last people to see him alive.”

“That is true, Josephus. Although, you could also say that I was the first person to see him dead.”

Sixty years and more she may have lived upon this earth, but her eyes could still twinkle mischievously. She knew why I had come.

“Tell me about that encounter, Lady. For the events of that day, the third after his crucifixion, are spoken of – by the members of the religious sect I have been tasked with explaining to the Emperor – with a mixture of reverence and awe.”

“And rightly so.” It was the first time the younger woman had spoken. “It is the heart of the mystery. The whole point of the story.”

“Resurrection? The whole point of the Orpheus myth – and the myth of Osiris. He that was dead shall live again.”

“Did you know Orpheus personally? Were you acquainted with Osiris before his unfortunate demise?”

The older woman was teasing me.

“Yeshua Ben Joseph was not a character from a fireside tale, or a temple play, Josephus. He was a carpenter from Nazareth. A flesh and blood man, with callouses on his hands and the word of God on his lips. Your friends, the Romans, nailed him up on a cross for the unforgiveable crime of speaking to large numbers of people in a way that made them want to listen. Oh, how that man could talk! The stories that he told. Small and homely they were: filled with all sorts of everyday things; and yet, somehow, also containing the whole of God’s wisdom – and his purpose.”

“Are you hungry, Titus Flavius Josephus?” The younger woman set down a platter of bread and a jug of wine.

“Thank you, not yet. Tell me about that morning in the garden.

“He was there. What more can I say?”

“He spoke to you?”

“It was as well that he did, for until he spoke I wasn’t certain it was him.”

“What did he say?”

“He said: ‘Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?’ I knew his voice right away, but it was only when he spoke my name, ‘Mary’, that I was sure.”

The two women sat in silence, their dark eyes upon me. Only then did it strike me that I was looking at a mother and her daughter. As I broke the bread and poured the wine, I couldn’t help wondering who the father might be.

This short story was written for publication during Easter 2018.

Republics Of This World: A Meditation on Rome, The USA And Easter.

Not Of Rome's World: While the similarities between the Roman and American republics are striking - especially in terms of the deliberate corruption of their politics by wealthy elites - the notion of belonging to a moral polity, as enunciated by Christ, could hardly be more different. The Kingdom of Heaven will always stand in sharp contrast to the brutally contested rewards of worldly governments.

 

I’VE JUST FINISHED READING Robert Harris’s historical novel, Dictator. Set in the final tumultuous years of the Roman Republic, the book has sharpened my appreciation of the current campaign for the American Presidency. Though separated in time by more than two thousand years, the political similarities between the world’s two most influential republics are more than a little unnerving.

 

In both instances we are confronted with extremely ambitious and fabulously wealthy men joining forces to subvert the institutions of the republic. The weapon of choice against the Roman and American constitutions are the all-too-easily aroused passions of the long-suffering plebs. Having whipped up the fury of the common people against the depredations of the elites, the enemies of the republic then set the plebs to dismantling the constitutional checks and balances which are all that stand between them and the exercise of unbridled power.

 

All that is lacking from the political stage of contemporary America is a Julius Caesar. There is, as yet, no United States equivalent of Rome’s all-conquering general. No one in command of an army of fanatically loyal soldiers ready to march on Washington itself – if that is their imperator’s command.

 

Some would cast Donald Trump in the role of America’s Caesar. Having read Harris’s novel, however, I would rather cast Trump as America’s Publius Clodius Pulcher.

 

Clodius was a populist Roman politician who relinquished his aristocratic privileges so that he could be elected to the office of Tribune – the representative and protector of ordinary citizens. Like Clodius, Trump is vilified by “decent” citizens for adopting the vulgar accents of the mob, and is accused of inciting them to intimidate and attack his opponents.

 

In Trump’s recent prediction/threat that there will be “riots in the streets” if the elites attempt to deny him the Republican Party’s nomination, one detects ominous echoes of Clodius’s actual use of his fiercely loyal plebeian followers to overawe the aristocratic Roman Senate and secure the passage of his populist legislation.

 

The fall of the Roman Republic was, paradoxically, the result of its extraordinary success. As Rome’s conquests multiplied, its wealth grew to the point where the civic virtue so essential to the operation of its complex constitution was utterly overwhelmed by avarice and corruption.

 

There was simply too much money to be made out of Rome’s expanding empire: more than enough to buy up the key public offices of the republic. Gold could also create legions, the military power upon which the city state and its empire ultimately rested. Inevitably one ambitious politician would lay his hands on sufficient wealth, and swords, to dispense with the consent of the Senate and People of Rome altogether.

 

This fascination with Rome, stronger today than it has been for many decades, may strike you as odd until you are reminded, every Easter, of the events which bind the world of two thousand years ago with the world of today. Whatever else it may purport to be, the story of Jesus of Nazareth; his birth, ministry and ultimate execution; is a story which takes place in the context of Rome’s imperium.

 

Jesus and his followers could no more avoid the political and moral questions posed by Roman rule than we can escape the challenges of American hegemony. In his time, as in ours, there were many who sought to free themselves from imperial rule by violence. Only a handful of those struck by Rome were willing to turn the other cheek.

 

The Judea of 33AD was as plagued by terrorism, and the grim reprisals it provokes, as the Israel of 2016AD. It’s people awaited the coming of a mighty leader: someone to make the land of God’s chosen people great again. For a moment, they thought they’d found one. But, when asked by the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, whether he was this long awaited King of the Jews, Jesus replied: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

 

What did Pilate make of that enigmatic answer? Did he shake his head – incredulous at his doomed prisoner’s naivety? How could Jesus not know that imperium and reality are inseparable? That nobody is more of this world than a king.

 

The idea of a moral imperium was as foreign to Pontius Pilate, then, as it is, now, to Donald Trump.

 

A version of this essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times of Thursday, 24 March 2016.

Good Friday Meditation: The End Of The Line?

Breaking Free: The God of Israel’s story was not one of endless repetition. Each human life was to be understood not as the fleeting rehearsal of a drama whose essential plot was unchanging; but as a step, however small, towards an end that humankind itself was fashioning. Jehovah’s representation of the world was historical, not cyclical. We, his human creations, were headed towards something that had not happened before.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION lie at the heart of the Easter story. But Christianity’s preeminent religious festival also echoes a much more ancient celebration; that of Spring’s triumphant overthrow of Winter’s deathly reign. Viewed from this perspective, Jesus of Nazareth is but the latest in a long line of divine revolutionaries whose sacred lives are bound, irretrievably, to the slow-turning wheel of the seasons; the relentless cycles of birth, death, and rebirth.

 

Where Christianity departs so decisively from the nature religions that preceded it is in its claim to have broken free of their circles. Jesus’s startling message held that the ferociously jealous sky father, Jehovah, was a linear god. The God of Israel’s story was not one of endless repetition. Each human life was to be understood not as the fleeting rehearsal of a drama whose essential plot was unchanging; but as a step, however small, towards an end that humankind itself was fashioning. Jehovah’s representation of the world was historical, not cyclical. We, his human creations, were headed towards something that had not happened before.

 

In the pre-industrial world that Jesus and his followers inhabited, it is difficult to overstate how radical this idea must have seemed. To people whose very existence depended on the orderly sequences of sowing and reaping; engendering and slaughtering; the notion of individuals stepping away from the relentless cycles of the world must have seemed, at best, fanciful, and, at worst, blasphemous.

 

Once grasped, however, it is easy to see how this idea might encourage notions of being among God’s chosen people. To embrace Jehovah’s linearity was to become a being in history – a shaper of events, rather than their inevitable victim. It’s what makes Jesus’s trade such a potent metaphor. For what else is a carpenter but a person who shapes things to a purpose? Someone who builds things to a plan?

 

The overwhelming image that emerges from all the Jesus stories is that of a man on a journey. The great events of his ministry are but stations: points which he is at once moving towards and departing from; points on a line.

 

Reading the Gospels it is impossible not to see Jerusalem as the city of endings: the inescapable terminus of Jesus journey; the place towards which every step he takes is leading him. It’s as if he knows that in this great crucible of faith and politics – of faith as politics – all the twisted threads of his life will be pulled, finally, into a single bloody knot.

 

Only in Jerusalem will he have an answer to the question that has been dogging him ever since he set out from Galilee. Is Death the end of the line?

 

Crucifixion is Death at his most cruel. We read that in the last, agonising moments of his earthly life, Jesus cried: “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And then: “It is finished.” As if, in the brutal reality of his own demise he finally understood the futility of his faith in straight lines.

 

From the perspective of Calvary did Jesus realise, at last, that space is curved? That what we perceive to be a straight line is, in fact, just a tiny section of a circle so vast that the brief span of human existence is simply too short to comprehend its immensity.

 

Or did he, hanging up there against the sky, understand that life is both linear and circular? That the quest for understanding, for meaning, leads us always straight on. But, also, that the quest itself is repeated endlessly. That every generation is driven forward by the power of all the lives lived before it. Like those voyaging spacecraft, flung ever further into space by the gravitational heft of the planets they pass by.

 

And isn’t this the true meaning of Jesus resurrection? That the all-too-human truths he wrenched from his own life lie waiting to be rediscovered in every generation. That the carpenter’s invitation, to step outside the dull circles of our lives and shape the world to some purpose, is one we all hear, but by no means all of us heed.

 

Perhaps only a God born in the desert could place such faith in the act of journeying. Where water is abundant, it is easy to forget how far people are willing to travel to quench their thirst.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Thursday, 2 April 2015.

Walking With Each Other

Into The Arms Of  Safety: But what kind of safety? And what manner of arms? How shall this world be healed when the innocent run from the arms of one gunman
 into the arms of another? (AP Photo)

 

IT IS A PICTURE of grief and relief. The fleeing hostage’s pale hands clutch franticly at the arm of the man who is swinging her behind him. The inclination of her body and the agitation of her flailing tresses convey vividly the desperate momentum of her flight. Eyes squeezed shut against the horrors at her back; the first of many gut-wrenching sobs escaping from her mouth, the young woman collapses, weeping, into the arms of safety.

 

But what kind of safety? And what manner of arms? Because the hostage’s rescuer is barely recognisable as a human being. Like the distraught waitress from the besieged Lindt Chocolat Café, he, too, is clad in black. But there the similarities end. The entity into whose arms the fleeing hostage has fallen might best be described as a weaponised biped.

 

If the young woman is the symbol of unprotected vulnerability, her rescuer represents the exact opposite. Every inch of him bristles with armour, weaponry and communications gear. And when he lowers the visor of his helmet what little remains of this two-legged tank’s humanity disappears altogether behind tinted Perspex.

 

Is this what the State has become? A blank and pitiless cyborg bulked up with Kevlar, strapped tight with Velcro and armed to the teeth? Is this really what we, as citizens, have demanded from those set in authority over us? Presented with a threat like the armed hostage-taker, Haron Monis, would we be outraged if the State defended us with anything less?

 

But if these weaponised human beings are indeed our representatives, then shouldn’t we give some thought to how the rest of the world might interpret what they – and we – truly stand for?

 

When we allow our politicians to pass laws that tightly circumscribe the limits of dissent and restrict people’s right to cross borders to uphold what they believe to be freedom and justice (as thousands of men did in the late-1930s to defend the Spanish Republic against its fascist enemies) what kind of values are we proclaiming?

 

And when even more fearsome variants of the weaponised men we send into our streets are deployed abroad to unleash fire and death upon people who have never lifted a hand against them, what should we expect from their families, friends and co-religionists in return?

 

History suggests that human beings generally respond as they are responded to.

 

Monday, 15 December 2014 will long be remembered in Australia for the crimes of Haron Monis. But among Australia’s Muslim community it will be remembered for something else. Hashtag I’ll Ride With you.

 

The Twitter account arose from an incident on a train where a young Muslim woman was observed removing her head-scarf in fear of retaliation for what was unfolding in Martin Place. A non-Muslim Australian citizen, seeing this, followed the young woman and implored her to replace her headscarf. “Don’t worry”, she said, “I’ll walk with you.” This extraordinary display of human solidarity, relayed through social media, saw the creation of #Illridewithyou and very soon tens of thousands of Australians were offering to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their Muslim fellow citizens.

 

Which was the better emblem of Australia? The Kevlar-encased, heavily-armed policemen who thrust a terrified young waitress behind him to safety? Or, the citizen upon whose shoulder a young Muslim woman sobbed her gratitude? Which message offers the better hope of peace and goodwill? The Australian fighter-bombers unleashing fire and death upon the battered remains of Iraq and Syria? Or, #Illridewithyou?

 

In just six days’ time we celebrate the birth of a Middle-Eastern prophet who instructed his followers to do more than repay like with like.

 

On a hillside in Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth told them:

 

You have heard it said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.

 

For how shall this world be healed when the innocent run from the arms of one gunman into the arms of another? If we would be truly safe, then we must all learn to say: “Don’t worry, I’ll walk with you.”

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and the Greymouth Star of Friday, 19 December 2014.

Barabbas - An Easter Story

"All I know is that he died and I live. Maybe it’s what lies at the heart of that day."

 

“YOU’RE A HARD MAN TO FIND!”, exclaimed the sharp-featured young fellow, setting a jug of wine upon the table. “I’ve had no end of trouble tracking you down! Some said you were dead, others that you had been sold into slavery. But I said ‘No, the people who each played a part in Our Teacher’s last hours upon this earth must surely enjoy the Lord’s protection’, and here you are, safe and sound, in Alexandria!”

 

“Safe and sound, you say? Can a Jew ever be truly so? Still, there are many of us here, safe among the Greeks – if not the Romans. So, tell me, boy, what has brought you all the way from Judea – no, don’t look so surprised, your Greek is good, but I’d recognise that accent anywhere – what do you want with this old grey head?

 

“I want the memories inside it, Yeshua Bar Abbas. You were there the day he died. While they still live, I am recording the testimony of all who witnessed the events of that day.”

 

“The day who died, boy? I have seen many men die – and I have to warn you, I do not remember very much about any of them.”

 

“You will remember this man, Yeshua Bar Abbas. Even though it happened thirty years ago. He was called Yeshua, too. A Galilean. From Nazareth. A teacher and a healer who preached the coming of the Kingdom. He was put to death by Pontius Pilate. You were involved in some way.”

 

“Yeshua of Nazareth? Oh, yes, I remember him.”

 

“You met him? You knew Our Teacher? Tell me what happened.”

 

“The truth is, I don’t know. We were both being held in Pilate’s prison. I’d already been condemned as a rebel – was scheduled to be crucified in a few hours. I do remember that I was feeling pretty sorry for myself – pretty low. Then they brought him in. The guards laughed when they heard his name, insisted on introducing me to my namesake. They told me I should bow, because this fellow was the King of the Jews.”

 

“Did he speak to you?”

 

“He smiled. Shook his head. Spoke softly. ‘I am no king’, he said. We talked for a long time. He seemed to know a lot about me. About my attacks on the Roman columns protecting the tax collectors. About the plot to cut down the Emperor’s standard above the Temple. I asked him if he was one of us – one of the Zealots. He shrugged his shoulders. Told me that there would always be Caesars of one sort or another. The trick, he said, is to recognise what can safely be surrendered to earthly authority, and what cannot. Doing what you’re told, he said, is much less important than doing what is right. I remember snorting with derision at this meek little man and wondering what on earth he was doing among the real revolutionaries.”

 

“What happened then?”

 

“A Centurion came and took him up to meet Pilate. He wasn’t gone long. Then a message came down from the Governor to release the man called Yeshua. I wasn’t surprised – at least, not until someone hauled me up and struck-off my chains. The guard had changed, you see. I was the only Yeshua they recognised. I couldn’t believe my luck! But then I recalled the Galilean’s words about rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s and unto God what was God’s. I hesitated, was about to speak, but he was standing right in front of me, telling me with his eyes to remain silent. He leaned forward and whispered: “Go in peace, Barabbas. Some things belong both to Caesar and to God.”

 

“What? You’re telling me Our Teacher’s death was a mistake!”

 

“No. I don’t think it was a mistake. I don’t think that anything about Yeshua was mistaken. There was something unfolding in that prison, something beyond my understanding. All I know is that he died and I live. Maybe it’s what lies at the heart of that day. What’s your name, son?

 

But the young fellow was already gathering up his tablets and stylus. He looked angry.

 

“My name is Marcus, and I’m sorry I found you Yeshua Bar Abbas. The story you’ve told me cannot possibly be true. I pray the Lord sends me a better one.”

 

This posting is one of a series of representations of the Christian story carried on the Bowalley Road blogsite every Easter and Christmas.

The Choice (An Easter Story)

Ecce Homo. (Behold, the man.) Painting by Antonio Ciseri (1821-1891).

THE most frightening scene in the Bible isn’t to be found in the Book of Revelations, but in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. It’s the scene where Pontius Pilate asks the people of Jerusalem to choose between Barabas and Jesus.

The gospel writers paint a vivid picture.

There, on the balcony of the Governor’s palace stands Pontius Pilate. In the open space below a vast crowd seethes and churns, their faces uplifted: hungry, expectant.

Pilate holds up his hand. The Roman legionaries lining the palace courtyard snap to attention, spear truncheons slamming against shields with a deafening crash. The crowd falls silent, standing there motionless in the sweltering mid-day heat, waiting for the Governor to speak.

Pilate motions to the Centurion guarding the prisoner, Jesus. The man pushes the preacher forward. A low murmur sweeps through the crowd as he steps into view.

"I have spoken at length to this man", says Pilate, "and can find no fault in him. He has certainly done nothing to merit a death sentence. He will be flogged and released."

This is not what the servants of the Sanhedrin, Israel’s religious high court, want to hear. Jesus has challenged its authority. His teachings leave little place for the strict hierarchy and expensive religious observances which have for centuries underpinned its social and economic power. Pilate’s job is to kill the man – not set him free.

Their leader begins chanting: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Scattered through the crowd, his men take up the chant. "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Pilate is momentarily distracted. A servant passes him a message from his wife.

"Don’t have anything to do with the holy man Jesus. He has appeared in my dreams – such terrible dreams. My husband, I am frightened. Don’t get involved."

Like all Romans, Pilate is deeply superstitious. He turns towards Jesus and their eyes meet. There is understanding in the preacher’s eyes, and compassion. Is that the hint of a smile upon his cracked and swollen lips? Pilate looks away.

"Think man, think!" he upbraids himself. "There must be some way out of this."

The Passover Pardon! The Roman Governor smiles. It has become the practice of Rome’s chief representative in Judea to every year release one condemned local prisoner to honour the Jewish people’s most sacred feast. He had planned to release Barabas, one of the band of religious terrorists known as Zealots. But these sectarian fanatics kill as many Jews as they do Romans. If he asks the crowd to choose between Barabas and Jesus, surely they’ll choose Jesus? Pilate motions for the prisoner Barabas to be brought forward.

"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?", he shouts above the ragged chanting of the Sanhedrin’s agents. "Jesus or Barabas?"

What Pilate does not know is that amongst the crowd are scattered not only agents of the Sanhedrin, but Zealots. They have heard a whisper that Barabas may be offered for release, and they have gathered to make sure it happens.

The chant goes up: "Barabas! Barabas!"

Pilate is stunned. "But this man Jesus has done nothing wrong!"

"Crucify him! Crucify him!", shout the men from the Sanhedrin.

The Zealots pick up the chant. "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Momentarily forgetting who and where he is, Pilate berates the crowd. "A week ago you were calling this vagabond your king! Would you crucify your king!"

The leader of the Sanhedrin’s men seizes his chance: "We have no king but Caesar!"

Pilate recoils as if struck. "What am I doing? Haggling with a mob. As good as recognising the Gallilean’s claims! If this gets back to Rome I’ll be finished!"

He calls for a servant to bring him a bowl of water.

Once again he lifts up his hand for silence.

"This man’s blood will not be on my hands!", he cries, ostentatiously washing them before the crowd. "You want Barabas? – then have him and be damned! But remember, the choice was yours."

He turns towards the preacher, the water still dripping from his hands.

"Is this the kingdom you would rule, Jesus of Nazareth?" he whispers. "Is that the love that sets men free?"

The preacher says nothing, but his gaze shifts from the Governor’s tormented eyes to the drops of water falling around his feet.

And they are crimson.