Judgement & Exclusion

There's rather a lot about judgement in Matthew's account of Jesus' life. In part this makes sense as the people he was writing to were attempting to come to terms with the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem and the suffering which accompanied it.

So this is introduced in a series of stories and parables highlighting the faithlessness of the religious leaders in Jesus' day and the judgement which would surely follow after they persecuted first Jesus and then his followers for so many years.

Finally, the end of chapter 23 and the bulk of 24 addresses the consequence of this, bringing together the terrible suffering during the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the hope of Jesus' eventual return into one terrible apocalyptic warning. We're bad at apocalyptic today so we tend to get lost in this passage but it most likely made sense, even brought a sense of comfort and meaning, to its early readers.

Then in chapter 25 the scope widens and we get three quick parables about judgement more generally, which are potentially easier to follow and apply today. These parables, known traditionally as The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, The Parable of the Talents and The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats are all parables of judgement.

Interestingly, given the traditional  Protestant religious focus on 'Salvation by faith not works', all three parables are most immediately about actions. Equally interestingly, given the traditional religious focus on avoiding 'sin' - refraining from doing forbidden things - all three are about people's failure (or not) to do what they should have done; no-one is criticised for doing something wrong, just for failing to do something right.

In the first, ten young women are chosen to accompany a bridegroom to his wedding feast. Five of the ten are prepared and ready when he comes, so they are welcomed into the feast in places of honour. The other five were not ready when he came and they are excluded: the bridegroom says he does not know them.

In the second parable a wealthy man goes on a journey so he gives his servants portions of his immense wealth to use while he is away. This is a tremendous opportunity which two of the servants use, whilst the third buries the wealth away and tries to go on with his life. When their master returns those who used the opportunity are praised and "given charge of many things"; the servant who deliberately failed to use the opportunity, however, is sharply criticised and thrown outside "into the darkness".

The final parable has Jesus returning in glory to judge people from all the nations. When he judges he does so on the basis of how they have treated those in need around them. He says the way we have treated the neediest is the way we treat him, and he separates people on this basis into those facing eternal life and those facing punishment.

Literally the word translated 'punishment' in that final parable means 'pruning' or cutting away, so again the implication is that judgement is about separation: separating those included in God's Kingdom from those who are excluded from it.

The basis for that separation is either what we do or, maybe more likely, on the underlying attitude: an attitude of expectancy which leads us to make sure we are ready and prepared; an attitude of trust which leads us to make use of opportunities God gives us; and especially an attitude of compassion for those we see in need.

And, in the end, inclusion means life and exclusion means death. How we live matters.

Advent Hope

"£25m Pay Deal Criticised" - BG group, headquartered here in Reading, are hiring a new CEO, Helge Lund, who wants £25 million for his first year. He may or may not get all of it, but the reality remains that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The reason is simple: the rich have the power to decide where the money goes and so they take it; the poor don't have power so they struggle to feed their families. It seems to me that there should be a reckoning for this, an accounting, a judgement if you like.

"Kassig Had ‘Calling’ To Help Syrians" - Peter Kassig was kidnapped and killed by the IS/ISIS/ISIL and a video of his death posted. What western media rarely mentions is that around 14 Syrians were also murdered on the video, an omission that seems to me to play into the hands of the IS propagandists. Nevertheless, what we have in Syria and Western Iraq is a situation where men (mostly) of violence are slaughtering people of goodwill and good intent. Surely that demands a reckoning, an accounting, a judgement.

"Rotherham: Tip Of The Iceberg" - At least 1,400 vulnerable children abused by a paedophile ring. Why the 'tip of the iceberg'? One reason is that there are now investigations into other paedophile rings operating in other towns and cities across the UK. The other is that police chiefs are now saying what the NSPCC have been saying for years: that all of these paedophile rings are only the tip of the iceberg of child abuse in this country - the vast majority of abuse takes place in or around the home, carried out by family members or family friends.There has to be a reckoning, an accounting, a judgement, and it must come soon: every day more children and young people are suffering.

What is God doing about all this?

Which brings us to Advent. Advent is not just looking back to the first Christmas, celebrating Emmanuel, God with us, and wondering about all that God was doing. Advent is also about looking forward in hope. In the church calendar, last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King; for the next few Sundays we look forward to the return of King Jesus to earth to reign in power over a new Kingdom of justice and peace. Sounds easy?

Back in the days of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah he wrote warnings about the consequences of the injustice, greed and violence racking his nation. Many of his passages have a thick dark thread of warning, interwoven with a fine gold thread about God intervening personally to sort things out. The warnings in due course came true, back in 587BC when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and exiled many of its people. Injustice piled on injustice, with greed, violence, poisonous politics and exploitative religion, had built up a toxic brew which eventually boiled over in death, destruction and horror. You can read about it in the Old Testament book of Lamentations.

It was several centuries before the fine gold thread took effect ... and then it was in a totally unexpected way. A baby in a manger, what is that about? The everyday miracle of a new birth, new life, imbued with the once-in-history miracle of the incarnation: God as humanity; the infinite creator of the universe as a tiny baby in its mother's arms. A wonder.

But still injustice, greed and violence continue. The Gospel writers, like Isaiah before, warn again of the consequences. Again, a thick dark thread of warning mixed with the fine golden thread of hope. There will be violence and destruction but, at an unknown time and in an unknown way, there will be change. The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed - again - in AD70, "not one stone left on another", but Jesus, crucified by men of violence, has been raised to be king. Soon, we don't when, he will return.

Injustice, greed and violence remain - see the headlines above. They regularly boil over in a reckoning of death, destruction and horror, but that changes nothing in the long term. A new approach is needed; a new kind of reckoning. Instead of a judgement of death and destruction, the world needs a judgement of redemption and transformation. Not a reckoning of retribution, but a reckoning of renewal: a totting up, a drawing of the line, a fresh start. The point is what comes after, not judgement in itself.

We get a pointer from the apostle Paul's first letter to the young church in Corinth. Talking about Jesus' return, Paul tells them that all we have done which is wrong, which falls short, which is unworthy of Jesus, all that will be burnt up when Jesus comes, destroyed, blown away, no more. Cleansed. On the other hand, he tells us later, all that we do which is good, wholesome, worthy of Jesus' name, that will last forever. Not just a good thing for today, but Jesus will carry it over into his reign, his kingdom. Anything good we do this week will be a part of Jesus' Kingdom throughout eternity.

The point is that we are not to be afraid of making mistakes, we need to reach out and do whatever good we can.

Jesus' parable of the talents makes the same point: God has given the gift of life to us; he wants us to use it. Not to hide away in fear, in case we make a mistake, but to use it to make a difference, to make this world a better place, and so to work toward the world to come.

Because Jesus' reign and Jesus' Kingdom are not just about when Jesus returns in glory. The Advent Hope is so much more than that. Jesus' Kingdom will come fully when Jesus returns, but even now it is breaking through where Jesus' followers are at work. Even now Jesus reigns where his people do the unexpected, take risks: when we help those who would not help us, when we are kind to those who show only enmity, when we go further, look deeper, do more. That is where Jesus' Kingdom is visible, calling people to respond.

This is what the Lord's Prayer means when we say "your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". It must never just be just words, it is to be said as a commitment: we will do all we can to help God's Kingdom break through where we are. Because the Advent Hope is not just an idea, it is actions and attitudes and a brave heart in difficult situations. It is trusting God to use all that we do for good.

And it is also saying, "Do hurry up, Lord, we're doing our best, but we still need you down here now!" Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Crusaders: Heroes, Villains Or Barbarians

Umayyad Caliphate, c750AD

"Tell me what to do", said the King upon his throne,
"but speak to me in whispers for we are not alone,
They tell me that Jerusalem has fallen to the hand
Of some bedevilled Eastern heathen who has seized the Holy land;"


Then the Chamberlain said "Lord, we must call upon our foes
In Spain and France and Germany to end our bitter wars,
All Christian men must be as one and gather for the fight,
You will be their leader, begin the battle cry,


Jerusalem is lost,
Jerusalem is lost,
Jerusalem is lost"...

Back when I was at school, the 'big picture' of history was mostly based around the major Mediterranean civilisations: Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Dark Ages, the Italian Renaissance, then the focus moves north for the Industrial Revolution and parliamentary democracy. There is a major omission from that list. Worryingly, even though the days when I studied history now count as history themselves, the list today would be pretty much the same.

Back in 1979, when Chris de Burgh released the song Crusader, from which the verses above were taken, it was taken for granted that crusaders were heroes, working together to free the Holy Land  from heathen invaders. In recent years the pendulum has swung completely the other way: I recently heard a (geographically-challenged) preacher talking about the Crusades as an example of early European oppression of black people. Either way the picture is of civilised Europeans attacking primitive Arabs. Which displays deep ignorance, as well of a degree of probable racism.

Back at the time of the First Crusade the Muslim Empire was the superpower of the era (at least in the West). Militarily, economically, scientifically and culturally it was the overwhelmingly dominant western civilisation. From its beginnings in the Arabian Peninsula, it had swept west across the top of Africa, then turned north to invade Europe through Spain. To the east, it reached as far as India, and to the north pushed up through the Middle East and into Anatolia (Turkey, as it is now known). The trigger for the First Crusade was when the Islamic advance turned west from Anatolia heading for Europe from the east.

Guarding the south-eastern entrance to Europe was the battered remains of the old Eastern Roman Empire (at this stage pretty much reduced to Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and the western end of Anatolia). The rest of Europe was a patchwork of tiny barbarian states, continually fighting one another. To emphasise: at this time the Muslims were the cultured, civilised superpower, and the Europeans were the uncultured, uncivilised barbarians. As the 11th Century progressed the Islamic superpower was inexorably advancing upon Eastern Europe. Finally, in 1095, the Byzantine leader, Alexios I, called for help from Pope Urban II, in Rome.

The religious situation in Europe at the time was odd. After the assorted barbarian tribes had swept across Europe as the Roman Empire collapsed, Christian missionarise went out, against the tide, spreading the word of Jesus amongst them. Afterwards the Roman Church did the diplomacy thing amongst the leaders of the new states, with the result that pretty much all of the 11th Century European states considered themselves Christian. So when the Pope sent out the word (in suitably vague terms) that Muslim armies had invaded and taken the holy city of Jerusalem, people across the whole of Europe responded. The barbarian states sent their men, from kings to peasants, to defend 'Christendom' (and, incidentally, Europe). Then they went back to fighting one another.

Much has been made of the way the Crusader armies behaved during this time. Basically they behaved barbarically - which is not unexpected from barbarians. But this was also a time when people who had never been more than half-a-day's walk from their homes, set off on a two thousand mile journey to fight for what they believed to be right. Barbarian or no, many crusaders were heroic in their commitment. And the Crusades did successfully delay the Islamic invasion of Europe by almost 4 centuries (Constantinople finally fell in 1453). Eventually the Muslim armies of Suleiman the Magnificent reached Vienna, in 1529, but that was their high-water mark.

In summary: the First Crusade was a defensive war by European barbarians against an invading Islamic superpower, in which the Europeans behaved barbarically.

Two-State Solution? Who Are They Kidding?

According to the BBC (who say their data comes from the OCHA), Israel now fully controls 62% of the West Bank; of the remaining 38% more than half is under Israeli security control. There are 149 authorised Israeli settlements in the West bank, and 100 'unauthorised outposts' - all illegal under international law. The population of the West Bank is 2.4 million Palestinians and 500,000 Jewish/Israeli settlers. It looks to me as though this data comes from the OHCA's report The Humanitarian Impact On Palestinians Of Israeli Settlements and Other Infrastructure In The West Bank (large pdf file), published in 2007. If so, and if I read the report correctly, then the BBC have their figures the wrong way around: Israel directly controls over 38% of the West bank and has security control over more than half of the remaining 62%. Although Israeli settlements have grown significantly since 2007, so these figures will be underestimates.

Meanwhile in Washington, Ramallah and Jerusalem negotiators make a lot of fuss about the supposed partial settlement freeze coming to an end.

Just for clarity, here is the introduction to Annex I of the OCHA report:

Under international law, Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), including East Jerusalem, are illegal. The illegality of Israeli settlements has been recognised by the international community including through resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

A key part of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is its appropriation of water resources, where Israeli settlers get the lions' share. For example, from the Western Aquifier, which lies under both Israel and the West bank, of the 362 million cubic metres pa pumped, just 22 mcm pa is for Palestinian use, the remaining 340 mcm pa is reserved for Israeli use. Water supplies to Palestinian towns are largely controlled by Mekorot, an Israeli firm which prioritises Israeli customers when water supplies are short.

The facts on the ground in Israel and Palestine are clear: Israel has no interest in a two-state solution, all it wants to do is to pressure more and more Palestinians into leaving their homes, whilst extending its settler presence throughout all the land it wants to appropriate. To anyone familiar with the history of apartheid in South Africa the strategy is all too plain.

A two-state solution which included a viable Palestinian state once looked a workable approach to the Israel/Palestine problem. Now it has been overtaken by events, and it is time to move toward a single state solution which is non-racist and fully democratic. Then all sides can have their capital in Jerusalem.