'Offensive Texts and Us.' The Impossible Cliff Face of Righteousness: Reflections on the Beatitudes

About this sermon

Please consider subscribing to my Substack. https://drgavinashenden.substack.com/ "A few weeks ago we approached a shocking reading in the liturgy during Mass, and I waited to see how it would be delivered. It was the passage in St Paul that feminists hate — reminding husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church, and reciprocally, wives to submit to their husbands. Because this is interpreted through the feminist lens of power relations, it is entirely unacceptable to them, even though the relational language amongst Christians is that of self-giving love, not fear or manipulation. But I never got to hear the passage read in Church at Mass. The middle-aged lady who was on duty to read that day stopped short and refused to continue the reading to the end. There was a pause; and a silence. I looked up to see if it was a dramatic pause? It wasn’t. It was the pause of abandonment. She approached the shocking words of the climax of the Pauline mystery of the mutuality of self-surrender, and stopping short, she turned away and left the lectern several sentences too early. I was indeed shocked; but not by the text. Instead by the determination of the guardians of ‘progressive church’ to protect our ears from the unthinkable. She had censored St Paul as being too outrageous for us. That moment came to mind again this Sunday as the Gospel was read at Mass. I was shocked again. We had St Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5. In fact, I was much more shocked by Jesus than I was by St Paul. This time, the shock was indeed provided by the text, not by its censorship. I was shocked at the impossible demands of Jesus."

Topics

• Bible Study