When Philip and I were on holiday in the Loire a couple of weeks ago, we visited some Roman ruins near the little village of Gennes. We hadn’t planned to visit them, but it was very hot, and they were in the midst of some woodland and we were at the point where we would have gone anywhere if it promised some shade. The ruins turned out to be the remains of a second-century amphitheatre, built by the Romans who had conquered and occupied Gaul. Every self-respecting Roman town expected to have an amphitheatre, but this one had been big, seating 5000 people. All that is left now, though, is the oval shaped arena, and some of the tiered seating on the sloping banks, which have been excavated and preserved. We had it to ourselves. It was peaceful and quiet. But as we walked around, we couldn’t help remembering what had once gone on there. The most popular attraction at these sort of arenas were gladiatorial games in which people fought to the death against each other or against wild animals. Many of them had no choice; they were enslaved, or had fallen foul of the Roman authorities in some way. Some may have been Christians, executed for their faith in these gruesome spectacles.
We might wonder why anyone
would want to watch people dying like this, but they did, in large numbers. And
before we get too sniffy about it, we might remember that public hangings took
place in England right up to the 1860’s, and were regarded by many as a good
day out, so long as it wasn’t you, or someone you loved, who was suffering.
The Roman writer Juvenal once
made a barbed comment about the formula the rulers of Rome used to stay in power.
“Bread and circuses” he called it. They’d realised that if you keep
people fed – there was a free dole of bread for Roman citizens – and if you keep
them entertained people will ignore almost any amount of injustice and
corruption, and in case they were inclined not to ignore it, the savagery of
the gladiatorial games reminded them of what would happen if they spoke out.
Rome claimed to bring peace
to the nations it conquered, the “Pax Romana”, but it was really no peace at
all; it was more like an imperial protection racket. ‘Toe the line and all will
be well’, they said. ‘We’ll build you roads and public bathhouses. But dare to
question or rebel, and it won’t end well for you.’
“Why do you not know how
to interpret the present time?” says
Jesus to his hearers in today’s Gospel reading. “Why can’t you see the
injustice and the need that’s in front of you? Why isn’t this burning at your
soul, making you act?” The answer was simple. We don’t see what we don’t
want to see. We don’t read the signs of the time because it would cost us too
much, and what is one person against such forces of evil? We feel powerless,
overwhelmed. We don’t face death in the
arena. Our challenges are different. But the problem is the same. We know that this
heatwave we’re in the middle of is wrong, a sign of human-made climate change,
but that doesn’t necessarily mean we act any differently. We know there is a
cost of living crisis which will make the lives of those who are already
struggling impossible this winter as they find they can’t afford to eat or to
heat. The latest idea to tackle this seems to be “warm banks” – places for
people to spend their days if they can’t afford to heat their homes. But these aren’t
the answer, any more than “food banks” are an answer to food poverty. That
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have food banks or warm banks – please do continue to
put your contributions in the collection box at the back of church - but there
something wrong if we aren’t asking why we need to do this. They are an
indictment of a nation in which so many don’t have enough to provide even the
basics of life, a sign that radical change is needed.
Jesus repeatedly asked
awkward questions like these of those in power in his own day, and it’s clear
from today’s Gospel reading, that he knows what that will cost him. The “baptism
which which I am to be baptised,” which he talks about is his crucifixion. He
knows a confrontation is coming, not because he has some supernatural power to
forecast the future, but because it is obvious. He’s spoken out for the
powerless and preached justice for the oppressed, and he has made powerful
enemies as a result. And he knows that anyone who follows him in doing that is
likely to find the same thing happens to them.
Faith can bring us
comfort in times of trouble, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes
it should be the thing that brings the trouble, that disturbs our
complacency, that pushes us out beyond our comfort zone. If we’ve never found
it hard to live as Jesus calls us to, then perhaps we haven’t really been
listening.
Jesus isn’t saying that
conflict is good in itself, or that falling out with our families or friends is
something we should rejoice in. He’s certainly not saying that if the rest of
the world is against you, you must be in the right. That sort of thinking can
be very dangerous, drawing us down dark and isolating pathways. But sometimes
conflict is the inevitable price of working for justice.
‘Interpreting the present times’ – seeing what needs
doing and doing it can be tough though. Very few people really enjoy conflict,
and those that do probably have something wrong with them. We can feel isolated
and alone when we speak out, but today’s Psalm reminds us that we aren’t.
It paints a picture of God in the midst of a heavenly
assembly, surrounded by what the Psalmist describes as gods, but which are
often interpreted as personifications of the forces that influence human
affairs, the impulses that push and pull us around, the things that feel bigger
than we are, beyond our control. St Paul later called them the “principalities
and powers” of the world. Today’s equivalent might be the global economic and
political systems we are all part of, which seem to have a life of their own,
or the ever-increasing digital networks we are entangled in, things too complex
for most of us even to begin to understand. In this Psalm God challenges them ‘How
long will you judge unjustly, and show favour to the wicked’ and tells them
to “save the weak and the orphan, defend the humble and the needy”.
That’s what power is supposed to be for, to bless and to benefit others, but so
often it is used simply to make the rich richer and the powerful more so.
It's a strange psalm. We often think of heaven as a
place where all is calm and perfect, but
I’m glad we have it in our Bibles, because it shows us a God who isn’t holding
himself at a distance from all the confusions and turmoil of the world, but takes
his place in the midst of it, sharing the pain of it, challenging abuse and
oppression.
And that’s what Jesus does on the cross, which is a
living enactment of this psalm. God came among us in Christ, rebuking the
“principalities and powers” of his age - the might of Rome, the
self-protectiveness of the Jewish authorities - and is killed for doing so. And
although all seems to be lost when he dies, his resurrection shows us that there
is no power that can destroy God, no hatred which is stronger than his love.
As we try to ‘interpret the present time”, to see and
respond to the challenges that seem overwhelming to us, may we remember that we
never do so alone. God stands with us as we challenge the ‘principalities and
powers’ our own times, the things which distort and maim his creation, whether
they are outside us or within us in the depths of our own hearts, and he will
not be defeated.
Amen
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